On a hill overlooking the Murray River flood plains, a short drive from Rutherglen, is a small but productive olive grove producing some of the best table olives and olive oil in the country. The extra-virgin olive oil from Gooramadda Olives has won gold at shows in Sydney and New York and at the Australian International Olive Awards and the table olives won Champion Table Olive at the 2023 Sydney Royal Fine Food Awards.
“We like to think we do what we do exceptionally well,” says owner Melanie Whyte. She and her husband Rob took over the existing grove in 2013; it had been planted with 11 different varieties almost 30 years ago. “We don’t cut corners. We only bottle the best.”
The Whytes specialise in single-variety table olives, fermented naturally in a salt and vinegar brine. Naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria ferment the ripe fruit, changing its texture and flavour and making it shelf stable. The black Kalamata olives have a juicy meatiness, a unique flavour and small stones. The king Kalamatas, which are picked green, have a little pip and lovely herbaceous notes. Appropriately enough, in a region famous for its fortified wine industry, the fragrant black Manzanillo olive matches perfectly with Rutherglen muscat. Gooramadda also produces a white wine-friendly table olive under the label Chardy. Table olives aside, the Frantoio olive oil is stunning. Soft, buttery and nutty, it’s a luscious oil for dressing dishes and is used by local chefs in baking.
Visitors interested in visiting Gooramadda Olives can drop by the cellar door and slow down, enjoy a plate of Victorian cheese and olives and check out the marmalades and preserves made from farm fruit. It’s a beautiful location where the guinea fowl quietly hunt the grasshoppers in the olive grove and the Murray flows silently by.