"Every November, one of the UK's leading Italian wine importers, Liberty Wines, hosts a tasting of new-season Tuscan olive oils (and corresponding wines) over lunch at London's River Café - an event attended by the producers and a roll-call of well-known chefs (guests at this year's lunch included Jamie Oliver, Henry Harris, Tomos Parry and the River Café's own Ruth Rogers). The oils are, genuinely, straight off the presses and there's a vitality, a vibrancy to them that I find absolutely thrilling."
"This annual event is one of my favorite tastings of the year - and the producers love it too, by all accounts. "Tasting the new-season oils is very special for us," says Beatrice Contini Bonacossi of Capezzana, an estate to the west of Florence. Capezzana's olive pickers prize the oil so much they take it as payment instead of cash. A family of five, says Conacossi, can get through around a litre of top-quality olive oil a week."
An annual November tasting in London presents new-season Tuscan olive oils and matching wines, attended by producers and prominent chefs. The oils are freshly pressed, exhibiting vitality, vibrancy, and a range of hues from olive to Chartreuse green. Each oil has a distinct personality shaped by terroir, vintage and olive variety, producing diverse sensory profiles. The 2025 harvest started early but yielded very good organic oils, some with spicy, intensely perfumed notes. Experienced tasters use black glasses to avoid colour bias; tasting involves nosing and aerating in the mouth, similar to wine.
Read at Elite Traveler
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]