`International Olive Oil Tasting Seminar Coming to Kalamata - Olive Oil Times

International Olive Oil Tasting Seminar Coming to Kalamata

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Nov. 14, 2012 08:34 UTC


Technological Educational Institute of Kalamata

Calibrating Panelists’ Minds & Palates” is an inter­na­tional sem­i­nar of the sen­sory attrib­utes of olive oil vari­eties to be held at the Technological Educational Institute of Kalamata, Greece, between November 18th and the 24th.

The Institute’s newly estab­lished olive oil taste lab­o­ra­tory will host the event, where expe­ri­enced tasters will con­vey their knowl­edge to olive sec­tor pro­fes­sion­als and researchers. The main pur­pose for the atten­dants is to famil­iar­ize them­selves with the organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics of dif­fer­ent olive vari­eties from the Mediterranean area and the American con­ti­nent, and to eval­u­ate tech­niques used in Italy, Spain and the USA.

The group of spe­cial­ists con­sists of Angeles Calvo Fandos, mem­ber of olive oil sen­sory experts of the International Olive Council (IOC) and the panel leader of the Taste Panel of Catalunya, Antonio Giuseppe Lauro, olive oil con­sul­tant and IOC panel leader, Paul Vossen, farm advi­sor for the UC Cooperative Extension, and Vasilis Demopoulos, assis­tant pro­fes­sor of the insti­tute and founder of the olive oil lab­o­ra­tory.

Apart from the tast­ing tech­niques, olive oil oil pro­duc­tion meth­ods uti­lized in Spain and Italy will be pre­sented and an open forum will take place on Friday 23rd where speak­ers will focus on the con­di­tions for pre­mium olive oil in the con­text of the finan­cial cri­sis in Europe and exam­ine its prospects and sus­tain­abil­ity. The last day of the sem­i­nar will include a visit to an olive grove and an olive oil mill in Mani.

Dr. Demopoulos explained that it is a highly antic­i­pated event and he hopes to be able to insti­tu­tion­al­ize it. Our olive oil taste team here at the Institute has more than 25 mem­bers and they are all anx­ious about the sem­i­nar. If we can sus­tain and improve it, it will be some­thing big for olive oil pro­duc­ers, traders and pro­fes­sion­als of the whole area.”

The sem­i­nar is co-funded by the International Olive Council.


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