The good oil – Eat Drink West

Robust flavours the fruits of Red Rock Olives’ labours

TREES led to the life and passion project Rita Bikins and David Margetson enjoy together.

They met tree-planting on a Landcare expedition, before making a tree-change to the Grampians region where they bought a tree-covered property; an olive grove.

Now the couple behind Red Rock Olives, trees, farming, and planting are still things that excite them.

“My husband is an experienced farmer, so he has so much knowledge. I have a marketing and sales background, business experience, and recipe and food knowledge, so our skills match,” Ms Bikins said

“This gave us the confidence to go ahead.”

The husband and wife team offer table olives, with up to nine varying recipes in different marinades, chilli or vinegar.

They are known best for their olive salt; using bruised olives to create something new.

“We make them into a paste, add salt, which comes out like a consistency of cement and then dry it back down to a salt. From that range, we have eight flavours,” Ms Bikins said.

Olive oil is her favourite Red Rock product, usually having more than one year’s harvest available for visitors to taste at their Pomonal property’s farmgate shop.

“That gives you a good idea of the taste profiles, and how they vary.

“Every year, the varieties taste slightly different and you can recognise the terroir of the olives like you can in a wine,” Ms Bikins said.

“The Grampians’ acidic soils give a really robust, peppery flavour, so we love our oils.”

She said the history of olives and their oil is a “fabulous” one.

“It goes back to before Egyptian times that people harvested and used olive oil for food, as well as medicinal purposes. I’m very proud that I have anything to do with it.

“The product is interesting, challenging, always dynamic. I couldn’t have been happier about choosing olives to grow,” Ms Bikins said.

With new faces coming and going at the farmgate, Ms Bikins said life is never boring or lonely.

“We interact with a lot of international tourists and Melbourne people, so there’s a good balance between meeting new people and the good, clean life I imagined for the tree-change,” she said.

“When you see the farm, the trees, and meet us face-to-face, I think it enhances your eating experience.”

There is a “genuineness” to this lifestyle she and Mr Margetson have relished, since making their move to western Victoria.

“We grow our own food, eat our own food, and we live with the seasons. It’s very different to the city life. It’s rewarding,” Ms Bikins said.

Red Rock Olives’ products are available at redrockolives.com.au, via Eat Drink West, The Olive Grove Deli in Ballarat, and at most Grampians wineries.

The farmgate shop is open Friday to Monday at 3594 Ararat-Halls Gap Road, Pomonal. The pair farms for the rest of the week.