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The Italian sec­tor of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil sud­denly lost one of its lead­ing lights, Gaetano Avallone.

A pro­fes­sional taster, panel leader and expert in pro­duc­tion and extrac­tion tech­niques, Avallone was the pres­i­dent of the National Association of Professional Olive Oil Tasters, Oleum.

Over the years, he con­tributed sig­nif­i­cantly to the devel­op­ment and improve­ment of the qual­ity of Italian Liquid Gold, through his activ­i­ties of pop­u­lar­iza­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion along­side col­lab­o­ra­tions with the coun­try’s best olive oil pro­duc­ers.

Austere in appear­ance, ​“the Professor,” as he was affec­tion­ately yet respect­fully called by his friends, had a spe­cial abil­ity to under­stand and embrace oth­ers, mak­ing them feel com­fort­able, while shar­ing his vast knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence with warmth and empa­thy.

Philosophy and olive oil pro­duc­tion were often inter­twined in his words. Professionalism and skills joined with spe­cial human traits made him a point of ref­er­ence for high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers since the early 1990s, when he co-founded the Salerno-based asso­ci­a­tion Oleum.

The fol­low­ing are words from those who shared the same pas­sion with Avallone:

“He cre­ated some of the best prod­ucts out there,” award-win­ning olive oil pro­ducer and miller, Nicolangelo Marsicani, said. ​“He made these excep­tional extra vir­gin olive oils out of noth­ing.”

“We are talk­ing about a great man and a great pro­fes­sional who, sev­eral years ago, had already real­ized that the olive oil world should have been rethought and rev­o­lu­tion­ized,” he added. ​“He is, in fact, among those who unleashed the wake of excel­lence of recent years.”

“Gaetano Avallone was my teacher at the tast­ing courses, and after­wards, we worked together,” Laura Dal Sacco, a pro­fes­sional taster and sec­re­tary of Oleum for eight years, said. ​“It was always a plea­sure and an honor to sup­port him in the many activ­i­ties of the asso­ci­a­tion.”

Dal Sacco said that he was a lover of beauty in all its forms, from nature and archi­tec­ture to poetry and for­eign lan­guages.

“He was bound to move towards extra vir­gin olive oil,” she said. ​“He had ded­i­cated him­self whole­heart­edly to this pas­sion for 25 years, so com­pletely that he became an expert in every area of the sec­tor.”

“He was an inno­va­tor, pos­sess­ing a gen­er­ous and smooth intu­ition, and he was a for­ward-think­ing man who saw at least 10 years ahead,” she con­tin­ued. ​“He was a cho­sen mas­ter with­out any self-ref­er­en­tial­ity. We all owe him a lot, and even if now we are a lit­tle lonely, we will con­tinue to work on the route he marked out.”

“I owe a lot to Gaetano Avallone, pro­fes­sion­ally and humanly speak­ing,” NYIOOC panel mem­ber, Antonio G Lauro, said. ​“We first met only four years ago, and he has given me so much, and there was so much more to do. We will honor his com­mit­ment to qual­ity, and we will do our best to be good stu­dents for a great pro­fes­sor.”