Olive Oil Sommelier Program Returns to California

It will be the sixth edition of the groundbreaking course organized by the Olive Oil Times Education Lab in partnership with the International Culinary Center.

By Olive Oil Times Staff
Jun. 21, 2018 13:35 UTC
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The Olive Oil Sommelier Certification Program will return to Campbell, California September 10 – 15. It will be the sixth edi­tion of the ground­break­ing course pro­duced by the Olive Oil Times Education Lab in part­ner­ship with the International Culinary Center.

The six-day, two-level pro­gram fea­tures the world’s fore­most olive oil experts and edu­ca­tors in a com­pre­hen­sive series of lessons and work­shops span­ning pro­duc­tion, qual­ity man­age­ment, and advanced sen­sory assess­ment.

Those who suc­cess­fully com­plete the course receive olive oil som­me­lier cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and join a grow­ing com­mu­nity of olive oil sen­sory ana­lysts and edu­ca­tors.

So far, the pro­gram has offered five ses­sions in New York and one in California that saw stu­dents from every cor­ner of the world — 22 coun­tries in all.

Attendees have ranged from small pro­duc­ers to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the very largest; from qual­ity-con­trol tech­ni­cians to pro­fes­sional chefs and restau­ra­teurs; from inde­pen­dent retail­ers to major dis­trib­u­tors.

Over the course of the week, par­tic­i­pants will be led through guided tast­ings of more than 130 sam­ples of olive oil from more than two dozen coun­tries by instruc­tors from Italy, Greece, Chile, Spain, New York and California.

The inter­ac­tive pro­gram spans the his­tory and cul­ture of olive oil, olive tree cul­ti­va­tion and har­vest­ing, milling and pro­duc­tion, health ben­e­fits and chem­istry, qual­ity man­age­ment, culi­nary appli­ca­tions and food pair­ing and, of course, the sen­sory eval­u­a­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil.

In fact, past par­tic­i­pants of the pro­gram have wasted lit­tle time putting their exper­tise and con­nec­tions to work around the world.

Fabulous course with incred­i­ble amounts of infor­ma­tion that can (and will) be used as a ref­er­ence guide for years to come,” a pro­ducer from California who com­pleted the six-day pro­gram said.

Another pro­ducer from Turkey said, I have learned much more than I expected. It was a very well struc­tured and orga­nized course.”

I thought it was excel­lent,” said Jacqueline Tyburski, a dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strate­gist for a soft­ware and ser­vices com­pany in Portland, Oregon. The qual­ity and range of instruc­tion were at a level that far sur­passed my expec­ta­tions.”

Willem Voorvaart, a Dutch finan­cial investor and part-time farmer who splits his time between London and France agreed. I should have taken the course five years ago. Very instruc­tive, good top­ics, well struc­tured and excel­lent speak­ers,” he said.

To reg­is­ter for the pro­gram, visit the Olive Oil Times Education Lab web­site.


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