The Olive Center this week unveiled its 2010 blends — Gunrock and Silo — partly made from campus olives.

The olive oils are available at the bookstore in the Memorial Union. On July 22, when they hit the shelves, the 250-milliliter bottles sold at a one-day-only discounted price of $10. Today (July 23), the regular price applies: $12 a bottle.

Proceeds go to the Olive Center for research and education, “cultivating the growth of the California olive industry.”

And, make no mistake, the Olive Center guarantees that what is in the bottles is “extra virgin” oil — just like it says on the labels. (Last week, the Olive Center reported on its analysis of a sampling of imported and California-produced olive oils — research that revealed that 69 percent of the imported oils and 10 percent of the California-produced oils failed to meet internationally accepted standards for extra virgin olive oil.)

UC Davis has been producing olive oils since 2005, when the Grounds Division saw profit in the bountiful fruit from the campus’s many olive trees.

Due to a record-low campus harvest this year, the Olive Center supplemented its own supply with donations from California Olive Ranch, Oroville; Corto Olive, Stockton; The Olive Press, Sonoma; and Sciabica’s, Modesto.

The new Gunrock blend has “a strong kick down the stretch,” according to the label. The Silo extra virgin blend is medium bodied with a mild peppery finish.

How it all started: "Creative use of fallow olive grove greases campus coffers" (April 15, 2005)