Sambrini, Special Mades for Modern Living

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Sambrini, the Olive Mill Master.

"When I look at these trees...I think of an old man, here for, who knows, maybe 5.000 years. They have seen so many things, so many generations. You cut them, you try to kill them and they don't die. They always tell you a story. The old men always sit under an olive tree. It has just the right amount of light and air. If you fall asleep under a fig tree, you'll end up with a headache. Under an olive tree, you dream...The trunk is cracked, rough, grayish. And the olives are fresh jewels hanging from the branches, as crown-like gift that I always like to touch, feel."-  Juan Carlos Rubio

Although it is true that olive groves would not amount to anything without the aid of men, it is no less certain that the men of Castile-La Mancha would not amount to much without their olive groves. For thousand of years, man has been both a producer and a consumer of olive oil, and has worked the miracle of converting the amazing wild olive tree into a productive olive cultivar. Throughout the centuries, man's attitude -which has been almost mystic- in respect of this almost eternal tree and its fruit, has been a decisive factor, and will be even more so in the immediate future.

On the ten large olive tree producing areas of Spain, olive groves of Castile-La Mancha, in the large Central terrain, are the ones having the coldest and more continental climate; these groves lie, and at times are also born, adjacent to the vineyards, generally in flat areas of land of the Spanish southern plateau, at a height of about 500 meters. However, according to climatic classification, Castile-La Mancha is a Mediterranean area; if this were not so olive trees would be non-existent. Olive trees and olive oil have a deep economic and social significance in Castile-La Mancha: three hundred thousand hectares cultivated by more than sixty thousand families. A cultivation which has a typically domestic character.

I believe the time for a recognition of our elders has dully arrived, those men who were able to develop what we today too quickly denominate "tradition", a word that should make us think much more about quality products as a result of individual efforts and knowledgeable expertise gained through decades..  This is the reason that lies behind the "SAMBRINI, Only the finest" brand concept of olive oils, our homage to the crushing mill master Anastasio Sambrini, who worked for the Rubio Aragonés family in Toledo (Spain) in between 1940 and 1969, a crucial period in the development of our olive oil industries.

Sambrini, Olive Oil History...

A group of temporary employees poses after a day of harvesting at the Mountains of Toledo. Olive oil crops were already the main agricultural income for this region as the evolution towards a cultural gathering was flowing easily. Olive oil as the center of the economy but also as a quality product much sought after by the emerging markets. Time for party, music and community enhancement was found soon after the olive harvesting period would end, around the first months of the year in this area, winter time. With the years, every town would compete with dances and balls, showers and honorary celebrations where guests of honor related to the production and trade of olive oil could be offered receptions and gifts.

Olive oil is the single cooking fat in the kitchens at Marjaliza -no butter or margarine, no lard, no vegetable shortenings, no other vegetable oil. Olive oil it is used in quantity and almost in every cooked dish: meat stews, potato cazuelas, grilled vegetables and roasted lamb, among others. Knowing that the oil they use comes from the olives they gather year after year makes everybody feel deeply involved with the land. Anastasio SAMBRINI learned it from his mother, the very best in town making food preserves and other big casserole stuffs she brought to Toledo from the Basque Country. Melting, early fusion, if one's allowed! Images of her would come to Anastasio's mind, years later, at the mill's porch, decanting freshly made jams, jellies, pickles, bottle fruits and other concoctions impossible to recognize at first sight. 

She also prepared wonderful olives for the rest of the year. "These vegetables are packed with every nutrient you could wish for", she would say. Never lacking home-grown produce, make a note. No fast-food mentality as everything in the property -nuts, seeds, fruits, leaves- contributed to one dish or another. As a natural way of living away from big cities, that was exactly what they were looking for after moving South from Portugalete. 

Casa Marjaliza

Casa Marjaliza. Surrounded by old trees as could be seen in many of the old farming towns up and down the valley of Los Yébenes and in other places of the region of Mountains of Toledo, where the townspeople took pride of their communities. All these trees, separated from the extensive groves, had the dual function of shade and fruit bearing. Laborers on the farms and ranches could pick the fruit and prepare enough olives and oil for their own families, if their employers allowed it.

The landscapes of Toledo country is defined by the olive tree. This definition is mythical, symbolic, and religious as well as physical, historical, and agricultural. Quite apart from their important role as producers of food, olive trees have exercised an inordinate fascination over many people during the six thousand years they have been cultivated. No other food of equal or greater antiquity -with the possible exception of the grape- is surrounded by the same aura of myth and romance.

Across the Strait of Gibraltar, the Phoenicians were said to be the first to plant olive trees on the Iberian Peninsula. The Romans greatly expanded the orchards, including this Central region of Toledo. But the Moors were so thorough in their seventh-century conquest that almost all traces of Rome were expunged. Today, traces of Arabic in modern Spanish -olive oil is aceite- bear testimony to the power of the Saracen (Moorish) invasion and their centuries-long occupation of Spain.

Severo Sambrini, the father of Anastasio, was an expert in explosives working for railroad and engineering companies of Northern Italy and Switzerland; he had come to work to the Basque Country around 1920, established himself there in similar jobs and married a lady from Portugalete. Out of this marriage, Anastasio was born, his first years surrounded by the mechanical environment that went along with his father's position. The family underwent the difficulties of Spanish Civil war in late 1930's but father Severo's health was exhausted and died soon after; mother, Inmaculada Idiazabal de Sambrini, decided to move South in Spain, arriving to the Mountains of Toledo with her son Anastasio, where agro activities in cereal and olive fields were being developed extensively. New life in times of peace and a promising future as the country was in the need for everything after the war was over.

One of the first known pictures of Anastasio Sambrini, second from left, taken after a day of work at the fields (c. late 1940's) in Marjaliza (Toledo). Photographer remains unknown, and was probably a professional coming from the town of Toledo, where a number of newspapers were already active in the coverage of agro news.

Sambrini: a harvest of life.

In Marjaliza, mother Inmaculada was hired by the widow of Juan Aragonés, Mrs. Felisa Serrano, the main olive grower in the town with more than 600 hectares of olive grows and a well established agro venture.
Marjaliza is a small village at the foothills of the Mountains of Toledo. The weather is very cold in the winter and warm in the summers. This combination is naturally the best that olive and almond trees can find, and it is not rare to contemplate the beautiful  olive groves covered by snow during weeks around December/January.

At the Marjaliza large state, the Aragonés family had landscaped an impressive grove over many years, with thousand of trees of age, mainly the Cornicabra variety, the local varietal tree whose name first appeared during  XVIII century. Cornicabra is today's second largest grown variety in Spain and it is well known out of its lesser oxidative  properties, its character & suitability for long lasting conditions of shelf life.

At that time, it was rare to find mechanical systems working in the olive groves in the large part of Castile-La Mancha territory, ; it was in these lands of the Aragonés family where modern tractors were introduced and the need for management and maintenance arose. 

This modernization of agriculture at Marjaliza state soon found young Anastasio employed in maintenance work related to tractors, transportation trucks and other mechanical devices, even electrical machinery and systems. It started to remain clear for the employer and for the rest of the employees that Anastasio Sambrini had more inclination towards these tasks than for other types of labour at the fields, as he was keeping himself very busy amongst screw nuts and bolts, gaining knowledgeable experience rather quickly.

As the landowner's daughter lady Ms. Pilar Aragonés married a young man from nearing town of Los Yébenes, Juan Rubio Navarro, belonging to a family with businesses in the wheat and olive oil manufacturing, Anastasio started working at the newly established olive crushing mill of Los Yébenes, where he set as its mill master during the crushing season while employed at the Aragones agro state the rest of the year. He was right at the birth of one of the most important olive oil ventures of Spain for years to come.

Los Yébenes' town is at 5 km distance of Marjaliza. It's name derives from the arab "Yeblalzar", meaning the "hill of the presses", the olive oil mills first established there around the 8th century following the tradition set by the Romans in the same region. The Rubio family had started olive crushing industrial operations in the decade of 1940, working with olives obtained in their lands as well as olives received from other landowners of the region such as the Aragonés. 

Sambrini: Olive Oil Milling

In the eyes of Anastasio Sambrini these machines were like giants, he loved the smell and the noise of the grindstones going round and round, pressing the olives. He discovered soon that the stones would not cut the olive skin, so less chlorophyll would be released. Larger size drops of oil were formed, minimizing mixing times, at cold temperature, so that lower levels of polyphenols would be extracted, meaning less bitter olive oil. But the stones required to be clean and the labor costs were high.

Separating the oil from the vegetable water and solids was the following step. This was done first with screw olive presses, which were later removed to install the modern hydraulic presses, where a piston would squeeze the paste that had been applied to stacks of disks-like vegetable filters.

Time brought the compact centrifugal decanters as the main system of extraction and Anastasio had the task of installing the equipments as a master of clock-work.  

They spin the olive paste in a horizontal drum; the heavier flesh and pits go to the outside and the water and oil are trapped off separately from the center. In spite of its efficiency, these machines were expensive and above all required a very technical labor.

In the 1950's, the final separation of oil from water was generally done by gravity putting the oil in tanks. It was an inexpensive method from an equipment point of view but very time-consuming, bulky, and lead to wasted oil if the separation was incomplete. With the appearance of modern centrifugal olive oil separators, like a cream separator in a dairy, either vertical or horizontal, the decanting tanks were going to be left out of use.