Hunter Valley Olive Oil Grove & Beef Enterprise
Hunter Valley Olive Oil – Quorrobolong Valley – Shalumar.
“We have just bottled our 2025 oil. There was no harvest in 2024, for reasons unknown: so it is wonderful to have our beautiful oil once again.
Shalumar is a boutique olive grove and beef enterprise nestled in the Quorrobolong valley bounded by the Watagan and Brokenback Mountain ranges in the Lower Hunter Valley. We are quite close to the coast with Lake Macquarie western shore about 8 kms away.
Hunter Valley Olive Oil grove produces Extra Virgin Olive Oil under the Shalumar label. Friends and family harvest the olives each year, and the friends keep coming back! The olives are cold pressed on site in our own very little olive mill, then after settling the oil is bottled on the farm. During the drought years our oil was quite peppery. With the wetter years our oil has been more mild. It is always full of character, and is never blended.
The grove is drip irrigated as needed, with water being sourced from two farm dams. We also run a 15KWatt solar system , so in terms of electricity and other fuel consumption we are close to carbon neutral. Apart from harvest time and sometimes pruning time, two of us look after the grove for the rest of the year.
Half the grove is planted to the oil variety Frantoio, the other half we have in the last 4 years removed table varieties and replanted with Coratina and Koroneiki oil vartieties, which have now matured to be fully producing trees. With our relatively humid climate, being close to the coast, the fleshy table varieties like Manzanilla, were too susceptible to disease. These two new oil varieties have proved to be good producers post drought.
We have not attempted to be classified organic, but in practice as far as possible we use organic treatments. The principle exception is using a chemical usually once to control olive lace bug, a little critter that likes to chew olive tree leaves.
Twenty Black Angus cows and the bull occupy the grazing pasture, with calving in spring. They are not backward in telling us when they want to move paddocks. These days some of our cows and the bull are of the Lowline breed, a bit easier for 70 year olds to handle!
The creek through the property is fenced off from stock, as is a dedicated wetland area. Over the years we see a large variety of wildlife. There are several wombat Hiltons located along the creek banks, and occasionally the owners are seen in the evening. Swans, pelicans and other waterbirds are regular visitors. Foxes and rabbits seem to have a balance. Deer have been a nuisance in recent years, ringbarking trees in winter when feed is low. A new deer fence has stopped their incursions, although the wombats made major tunneling efforts on the new fence until we installed two wombat gates for their convenience. Post olive harvest Choughs fly in the pick up the olives on the ground. They are like crows but show a flash of white on their wings when flying.