Drive around wine country on the weekend, and you’ll likely see small white signs beckoning you to an olive oil tasting. Follow them, and you’ll land at The Olive Plantation, a 10-acre family-owned farm surrounded by 1,000 olive trees where you can step inside their sweet little shop and taste award-winning extra virgin olive oil with decadent balsamic vinegars.
The Olive Plantation is a happy accident. Dave and Lori Fenton, along with their daughter Jenna, relocated to Temecula from Orange County and built a gorgeous, Spanish-style home in the heart of wine country. They were struggling to get final approval to move into their home because of the amount of vegetation removed for their buildout. So, in 2010, Dave and Jenna, a budding plant scientist, decided to plant a grove of olive trees, to help beautify the land with the idea that maybe one day they could sell the trees to fellow residents. The trees took to the land and surprised the family by fruiting enough for a harvest in just 5 years, and so The Olive Plantation was born. The family mills the olives on-site using the first cold-press method.
The farm was quiet on the day we were there. It was a Wednesday, and the farm is usually only open to the public on weekends, but a tasting had been arranged as part of a private tour that we had booked with Tour del Vino. The organizer of our tour knew that I liked to cook and had recommended it as a stop between wine tastings. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Lori Fenton, who showed us into the tasting room where multiple awards from the California State Fair and New York International Olive Oil Competition are on display. Along the walls, there were display shelves for their olive oil and balsamic vinegar, the framed degree in Plant Science from Cal Poly Pomona earned by Jenna after starting the farm, and fantastic photos of the farm’s sheep taken by Lori, who is a professional portrait photographer. The adorable sheep models are also part of The Olive Plantation’s organic farming practice.
The farm sells just one olive oil. It’s a blend from the variety of olive trees on the farm, and the flavor is rich and green. It’s olive oil you want to use for drizzling and dipping where its flavor can take center stage. We also tasted each of their bold and mouth-watering flavored vinegars:
- Reserve Balsamic
- Cranberry Balsamic
- Truffle Balsamic
- Peach Balsamic
- Blackberry Balsamic
It was very hard not to come away with all of them. The cranberry would be perfect on a spinach and goat cheese salad, the truffle variety would be amazing drizzled over a pizza or bowl of pasta, and the peach and blackberry are just calling out to top some quality vanilla ice cream.
The Olive Plantation is on Pauba Road, which runs from the top of wine country down to the De Portola trail, making it a perfect stop between tastings, if, say, you’ve just finished a tasting at Peltzer Winery and are heading over to Robert Renzoni Winery next. It’s directly across the road from Baily Winery’s production room, where they too hold reserve tastings on weekends, so it would be a perfect stop once you’ve finished there as well.
Visitor info
Open 12 to 4 pm every Saturday and Sunday for tastings and purchasing. The sales room door is located below the mission bell.
