TASTE
Fields of Gold
The Sacramento Valley’s climate is ripe for producing quality olive oil
BY Judy Farah PHOTOS BY Ryan Angel Meza
Sebastian Bariani stands among
30,000 acres of olive trees in Zamora.
Sebastian Bariani guns his
two-seater Kawasaki utility vehicle
through his family’s 180 acres
of olive trees in Zamora in Yolo County.
The cart bounces up and down as he
zooms through the orchards, startling
jackrabbits who hop away. Bariani is
checking on this year’s growth of 30,000
olive trees, which produce 33,000
gallons of Bariani Olive Oil a year.
Bariani’s parents, Angelo and Santa,
and two brothers, Enrico and Emanuele,
moved from Italy to Sacramento
in 1990, and the family’s olive oil is
sold in local speciality stores such as
Taylor’s Market and Corti Brothers
(food and wine legend Darrell Corti
says he was the first to carry Bariani
oil), and Martha Stewart even filmed a
segment with the family back in 1997.
Olive oil originated thousands of
years ago in the Mediterranean and
was revered in Greek mythology with
the legend of the goddess Athena, who
touched her spear into the ground
and produced an olive tree. Olive oil is
popular due to its heart-healthy, monounsaturated
fats and is a staple in the
Mediterranean, ketogenic and paleo diets.
There are thousands of varieties of
olives in the world, reports the University
of California Organic Olive Production
Manual, and about 75 in California,
according to Dan Flynn, executive
director of the UC Davis Olive Center.
About 90 percent of the world’s
olive oil comes from Greece, Spain and
Italy — and that’s mostly what’s available
on grocery store shelves — and
California produces less than 5 percent,
30 comstocksmag.com | July 2020