Lately I have been at Olio Officina Food Festival, the only event in Italy dedicated to the world of olive oil and its surroundings.

What I really like about this event is that in one place you can test EVOOs coming from many places (mainly Italian olive oils) and chat with the producers, which I always find very interesting as you discover so many stories and characters! Anyway lets stick to the testing part.

As most of you already know this year’s production will not be at the top. Main factors: mild winter, too much rain in summer so the olives were not perfect (in many cases contains too much water). On top of that the disasters caused by fly and other bacteria.

Unfortunately all those variables affected the flavour. Overall this year EVOO production (from the famous mild from Garda Lake area to the ones extracted in Sicily) will be characterised by less intense aromas. I have been tasting in one day around 16 different types and all of them (no matter if we are talking about spiciness, fruitiness, aroma of grass, artichoke, pungent….) are in the range of “mild”.

Which is good for all of the people that are telling me they prefer mild taste, even though you need to know that the stronger the aroma the more polyphenols the EVOO contains! I will explain in details why the polyphenols are important for EVOO in my next post.

Ciao