From the Vine to the Olive Tree: The sea-curing ritual of the Samian Olive

Guardians of the Vineyard. When the grape harvest ends in Samos, a gentle sadness fills the air. The winery tanks are full, fermentation continues, and the vines, now bare, get ready for winter. But for us, the work does not stop. As the vines rest, the olive trees come to life. These trees stand quietly at the edges of our vineyards, starting their season just as the grapevines finish theirs. It is a beautiful shift in nature: moving from the sweetness of grapes to the richness of olives, from wine to food. We see these worlds as connected. The olive trees grow in the same soil, breathe the same air, and face the same winds as our Muscat vines. They share the same land.

The Ancient Puzzle: Oleuropein. As the season goes on, we get ready to harvest the "liquid gold." Before olives become black and oily, they go through a green stage when they are firm, crunchy, and bright. If you try a raw olive from the tree, the taste is extremely bitter and almost impossible to eat. This bitterness comes from Oleuropein, a natural compound that protects the fruit from insects and bacteria. This leads to an old question: How did early Greek people, around 600 BC, learn to turn this hard, bitter fruit into a tasty, crisp treat? The answer was right in front of them, brought by the sea.

The Science of the Sea (Osmosis & Diffusion). At Philia Winery, we prefer to keep things simple, not just with wine but with everything we make. To make olives edible, we use the Aegean Sea that surrounds our island. The process shown in the video is more than a tradition; it uses real science. The olive’s skin is tough, made of tightly packed cells with tiny spots called lenticels that let the fruit breathe. To remove the bitterness, we need to open this barrier. We break the olives using the "tsakistes" method, which lets water reach the inside right away. Then, we soak them in the sea. Two things happen next:

1. Diffusion: The bitter oleuropein leaves the inside of the fruit, where it is concentrated, and moves into the sea, where there is less of it.

2. Osmosis: Salt from the sea enters the fruit’s cells, pulls out extra water, and makes the olives firmer. The sea is the perfect solution for this. It is natural, plentiful, and full of our island’s minerals.

The Alchemy of Fermentation. After about five days in the sea, the strong bitterness is gone and a gentle saltiness takes its place. But the process continues. The olive flesh still has sugars like glucose, fructose, and mannose, which feed the next step. We move the olives into a new brine, often made with filtered seawater and fresh lemon. In this air-free setting, helpful bacteria, mainly Lactobacillus, eat the sugars. This is called lactic acid fermentation. The sugars turn into lactic acid, which preserves the olives and gives them a tangy, complex taste. We add lemon for its smell and because its citric acid lowers the pH, keeping the olives crunchy and safe from bad bacteria.

A Fatal Mixture (Again). Like our wine, these olives are more than just a result of photosynthesis. They are formed by tradition. Washing olives at the beach is a ritual that links us to past generations who did the same on these shores. The final snack captures Samos: the crunch of green fruit, the salt of the sea, the sharpness of lemon, and a touch of bitterness that remains. Just as in life and wine, a little bitterness helps us enjoy everything else.