If olives and olive oil conjure up images of warm, dry Mediterranean days and nights, Stephen and Anna Clark, of Bannockburn, provide a reality check.
Four years ago, they were picking in 15cm of snow; this year, they've been picking in near-zero temperatures, with ice beneath their feet some days, and they still have two or three weeks to go.
Former St Hilda's teacher Anna and former Ravensdown executive and chemical engineer Stephen are some of the early pioneers of Central Otago olive-growing.
They established their 1000-tree Cairnmuir Olives grove on Cornish Point Rd, across Lake Dunstan from Old Cromwell, 14 years ago.
It is a business they have learned from the ground up - through practical experience, via the internet and through membership of industry groups.
They belong to the local Central Otago Olive Growers group, which has 35 members - one of whom, they say, is the proud owner of just two olive trees, situated outside her front door.
That tallies with Mrs Clark's advice to would-be olive growers.
"Don't give up your day job. Consider olive-growing a hobby."
When the Clarks started, olives were going through a "real boom" but Mr Clark says with a laugh that now a "sense of realism" had set in.
"There used to be headlines in newspapers of `green gold' or `new gold' and suchlike.
"I don't think anybody is making a fortune out of olive oil in New Zealand."
Mr Clark says Central Otago is about as far south as olives will grow, although frost has been known to claim up to 80% of some growers' crops some years.
He says it is hard on young trees and the canopy of mature trees but once trees are established, "a typical Central Otago winter round here wouldn't kill them".
Mr Clark is optimistic that this year, finally, they will make a "reasonable" profit.
Mrs Clark suggests, surprisingly cheerfully, that to make that profit has required the couple and their son Chris to work all year for 30c an hour.
As in many parts of Central Otago, their soil was poor when they began.
Their young trees required much fertiliser and lime and they had to be staked and irrigated and pruned and protected from the rabbits.
And now their trees are as high as a house, it takes about eight weeks to harvest their 10-tonne crop and turn it into oil - two days of harvesting followed by one day of processing.
The Clarks harvest only as many olives as they need and must make a judgement now about how much olive oil they can sell over the next 12 months.
They cannot compete with imported oil on price, so go to considerable lengths to ensure they compete on quality.
Fresh oil has a "spectacular" green colour - thanks to the chlorophyll it contains - but it takes only a few hours' exposure to light to turn it yellow.
For that reason, the Clarks use bottles made from coloured glass.
And, unlike wine, olive oil does not improve with age.
Mr Clark says with a lot of imported oils, there is nothing on the label to say when it was produced.
He says one of the advantages of allowing the harvest to go on into the winter is that riper fruit contains more oil.
The down side, however, is that it contains less of the polyphenols that give Central Otago oil its distinctive "pungency".
Producing good olive oil, he says, is about getting the balance right.
