Sonoma Valley is in the midst of its Sonoma Valley Olive Festival held between December and February, with its olive brining events, wine and olive oil tastings, martini parties, and olive oil cooking classes held at restaurants and vineyards and various other olive associated events. There are almost daily activities through the end of the festival on the fifteenth of February and a schedule of activities can be found on the festival’s website.
In its eighth year, the Sonoma Valley Olive Festival continues to gain recognition for the other local fruit grown in the northern California wine country of Sonoma County and Napa County. The success of the festival is an indication of the growth of the olive industry itself in California where roughly ten thousand acres of olive groves are added each year.
While most of the United States’ olive oil is imported, with only one percent of the nation’s olive oil consumption currently being met by domestic production, almost all of what is produced domestically comes from the state of California. While Sonoma County has the cache of the vineyards and stands to build better brand names with its offerings from the 150 growers there, the vast majority of the production volume still comes from California’s Central Valley region where grove density is much higher and groves are significantly larger.
Helping to drive the state’s olive industry is the first U.S. based university research and education facility located at University of California, Davis and launched in 2007 as an arm of the Wine and Food Service Institute there, established by the well known denizen of wine, Robert Mondavi. The wine industry and olive oil are obviously complementary products given the symbiosis between food and wine and numerous California wineries can also be found producing olive oil products in Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley. The crops are complementary as their harvest seasons don’t conflict and the growth of the domestic olive industry in the California wine country region is being compared to the rise of California wines following the mid-seventies. See and taste what’s so pressing about the olive industry in California wine country at the Sonoma Valley Olive Festival.
