The olive tree collector

Some people collect stamps, some others collect butterflies, but this 75 year-old Sevillian has taken to making a museum with 130 varieties of olive trees, some of them from the Holy Land. He is the President of Acesur, the highest olive oil company with Spanish capital share. His name is Juan Ramon Guillen and he has been pioneer even to invent the first oil shampoo. Nowadays, he’s the head of a foundation sited in an Estate that belonged to Christopher Columbus’ son.

He’s brought branches, seeds and even cuttings hidden in his luggage; he’s a globetrotter and a sleuth with an extraordinary olive passion. This man shows with pride his olive trees he’s taken from all over the world and explains, in a mocking tone, that he almost had to smuggle some of them to Spain. The Nabali variety from Palestine; Elet, Serat, Treleia Musabi and Ebali varieties from Syria; Spanish varieties such as Lucio, Atarfe, Gordal, Reques, Luneta, Alfafareca, Empaltre, Verdial and many more…All along this olive tree promenade, Mr Juan Ramon Guillen becomes the patron of his art gallery of beating canopy.

His deep and powerful voice resounds between the Italian varieties Frantoio and Cipresino, and even the Tunisian varieties Ouslati and Chetoi seem to hear him throughout the tree path. His favorite olive tree is the Cretan variety “Koroneiki”, that produces the best olive oil you can taste, he confesses, at 12 Euro per bottle. There is also a tree brought from the Sacred Mount of Olives, where Jesus Christ prayed before he was arrested. Mr. Guillen has devotedly relieved some varieties such as the white wild olive tree or the Rapazalla.

This peculiar olive tree museum was created at Hacienda Guzman (La Rinconada, Seville), 20 years ago. It is a 425 hectares estate near the airport of Seville. That is, according to Mr Guillen, the perfect setting to create the best olive oil investigation center in the whole planet. He wants the museum to become the epicenter of the most productive tree in the world, and that’s why both his Olivotheque and his Foundation have been located there too (…)

Source: From Javier Caballero’s article in the Spanish Magazine El Mundo, dated on July 3rd 2011.