`Trieste Ready for Olio Capitale - Olive Oil Times

Trieste Ready for Olio Capitale

By Laura Rose
Mar. 16, 2011 16:22 UTC

There may be innu­mer­able olive oils in Italy, but there is only one trade show ded­i­cated entirely to the art, knowl­edge, and indus­try of olive oil. From the 18th to the 21st of March, hun­dreds of olive oil pro­duc­ers and thou­sands of inter­ested pro­fes­sion­als and pri­vate gour­mands will con­verge on Trieste for the fifth annual edi­tion of this pres­ti­gious show­case for Italian and for­eign extra vir­gin.

As part of the fes­tiv­i­ties at Olio Capitale 2011, par­tic­i­pants will be intro­duced to some of the world’s finest extra vir­gin olive oils in guided taste ses­sions at the Oil Bar”. There, indus­try pro­fes­sion­als will offer lessons on the finer points and dis­tinc­tive notes that reveal the olive vari­eties, pro­duc­tion meth­ods, weather, and ter­roir that have gone into the oils. Cooking classes with some of Italy’s renowned chefs will also be hap­pen­ing daily with an empha­sis on pair­ing dif­fer­ent olive oils.

To enhance vis­i­tors’ appre­ci­a­tion for the vari­a­tions among these high qual­ity pro­duc­ers, exhibitors will be offer­ing tastes of their own table olives for the first time at the fair. The tast­ing table was added in the hopes of improv­ing vis­i­tors’ under­stand­ing of the link between the nuanced fla­vor of dif­fer­ent olives and the oils they are used to pro­duce.

Italian min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture Nicola Cavaliere will present the Goccia d’Oro” prize to 30 hand­picked oils from the cen­tral region of Molise, known for its Aurina di Venafro and Gentile di Larino olives. The region was cho­sen because it is a prime rep­re­sen­ta­tive of what Italy does so well — small pro­duc­tion of high qual­ity, highly spe­cial­ized extra vir­gin olive oils. Olives such as the dis­tinc­tive Rumignana Colletorto, the Rosciola, the Cellini Rotello and the Cerasa are linked to par­tic­u­lar ter­ri­to­ries, alti­tudes, and grow­ing con­di­tions of Molise, serv­ing to empha­size the art and region-spe­cific qual­i­ties of Italian style extra vir­gins.

Visitors will also be given the chance to act as experts. The pres­ti­gious tast­ing com­pe­ti­tion, in which pro­fes­sional epi­cures pre-select the final­ists, will then be judged by three dif­fer­ent pan­els. Professional tasters will again make their eval­u­a­tion as one panel, while pro­fes­sional cooks and pro­duc­ers will form a sec­ond panel. Finally a panel made up of ordi­nary vis­i­tors to the show, who first attend some of the sched­uled tast­ing courses, will be asked to vote on their favorite of these top qual­ity olive oils, and help select the win­ners of this year’s illus­tri­ous prize.

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