Michele is one of our Oil Tasters, who with passion and dedication selects the best extra virgin olive oils for you.
In this short interview he tells us his story.
How did your passion for oil start and why did you want to take this path and become a taster?
I cannot say that my "love affair" with extra virgin was born with a bolt of lightning. In fact, I have to admit that when I first started working with FJT, the year 2008 was running, the unbridled passion towards what to me was a simple condiment made me skeptical to say the least.
It was then time, the chance to meet great oil masters and work side by side with passionate and experienced colleagues, that made me fall madly in love.
Lorenzo Trinci at FJT was the first official taster laid the path for me, Angela, Simona, Matteo, Costanza and Chiara.
How does one become a taster?
The first step we described earlier! Surely we must be in love with the oil!
One must then enroll in and attend an official course for Aspiring Olive Oil Tasters and obtain a certificate of Physiological Suitability for Tasting.
This must then be followed by 25 tasting sessions with an official panel before one can join the National List of Olive Oil Technicians and Experts.
That done, all that remains is to keep tasting every day to improve and keep in training...the palate can eventually be compared to a muscle!
If then, like me , you are lucky enough to be able to taste oil every day together with a group of experts and have colleagues who are part of official panels, it is all easier.
At FJT we bring the tasting panel together at least 2-3 times a week, and together with everyone on the farm who has passion, and who will soon take the path, we taste oils that come from farms all over the world. My hope is that within a few years we will have a Panel Leader, and that we can create an official in-house panel.
What does the oil tasting technique consist of?
How to taste.....first of all we must understand that an oil is tasted and evaluated with the nose and mouth, never with the eyes.
If an oil has a light color tending to yellow, it does not mean that it is worse than a deep green one. Color depends on many factors, cultivar first and foremost, and should not concern a taster. The oil should be warmed slightly so that the aromas, the "fruitiness" to use the correct terminology, are better perceived. One brings the glass to the nose and inhales deeply, best if the operation is also repeated using one nostril at a time. The nose is then assessed for fruitiness and "freshness," thus whether an oil is a green or ripe or even defective fruitiness.
A small amount is then placed in the mouth and a so-called "stripping" is performed, that is, an inhalation of air that allows the oil to flow over the palate until it reaches the retronasal area and confirms the olfactory sensations obtained previously.
This will also allow us to evaluate the two fundamental parameters such as Bitter and Spicy, two attributes that MUST be present in an extra virgin oil.
Based on what is an oil classified (light fruity, medium, intense ...)?
The technique we have just described is used by tasters in the first instance to check for the absence of a defect, i.e., a negative characteristic ( rancid, warming, mold....), a necessary condition for an oil to be called extra virgin.
We then evaluate the level of olive fruitiness with values from 0 to 9, which will also allow us to evaluate the category of fruitiness ( green or ripe ) and intensity : light up to 3, medium up to 6, intense above 6. For bitter and spicy, intensity is also evaluated using the same scale.
It is important to keep in mind that a more intense oil is not necessarily a better oil.
After this we enter the 'realm of scents and from here the poetry begins....