Olive Oil Sommelier Program Expands to California

The Olive Oil Program at the International Culinary Center is expand­ing to the school’s Campbell, California cam­pus with a six-day, two-level olive oil som­me­lier cer­ti­fi­ca­tion course this October, said Curtis Cord, the pro­gram’s exec­u­tive direc­tor.

An inter­na­tional fac­ulty of renowned experts will guide stu­dents through more than 100 olive oil sam­ples from 26 coun­tries in the world’s most com­pre­hen­sive cur­ricu­lum in olive oil qual­ity assess­ment.

The expan­sion of the pro­gram, pre­sented by the Olive Oil Times Education Lab and the International Culinary Center (ICC), fol­lows two suc­cess­ful courses in New York, where par­tic­i­pants came from as far as Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, The Netherlands, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Tunisia and Dubai to gain a thor­ough under­stand­ing of one of the world’s most impor­tant foods.

The direc­tor of the International Culinary Center Olive Oil Program, Curtis Cord, said stu­dents were in store for an unri­valed edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ence designed to fos­ter a deep under­stand­ing of olive oil qual­ity assess­ment. Cord con­ceived the pro­gram with the late Dorothy Cann Hamilton, the ICC founder.

“The responses to our pro­gram have been over­whelm­ingly pos­i­tive and extremely help­ful in guid­ing the devel­op­ment of this ground­break­ing course,” Cord said. ​“We’re so proud to be work­ing with the International Culinary Center to offer a pro­gram in olive oil sen­sory assess­ment like no other in the world.”

While stu­dents of the som­me­lier pro­gram have included such diverse pro­fes­sion­als as pro­duc­ers, mar­keters, importers, mer­chants, food buy­ers, qual­ity-con­trol man­agers, chefs, jour­nal­ists and lawyers, Cord said the pro­gram is designed to teach the vital skills of sen­sory analy­sis to any­one con­cerned with olive oil qual­ity.

Instructors from five coun­tries will guide tast­ings of an inter­na­tional selec­tion of oils to expose stu­dents to an unri­valed diver­sity of olive cul­ti­vars and fla­vor pro­files, build­ing an inter­nal sen­sory library to steer future deci­sions on mat­ters of olive oil qual­ity and usage.

The pro­gram aims to do more than cre­at­ing olive oil experts, Cord said. ​“We are out to build a com­mu­nity of edu­ca­tors who can change the lives of peo­ple every­where by reveal­ing the truths about this gift nature has given us.”

The pro­gram man­ages an active online com­mu­nity forum where those who have taken the course col­lab­o­rate and other social tools are in the works to serve the grow­ing ranks of olive oil som­me­liers. To develop their skills even fur­ther, Cord recently announced an appren­tice­ship pro­gram at next week’s New York International Olive Oil Competition, where the new som­me­liers will sit along­side the lead­ing experts as they ana­lyze entries in the world’s largest olive oil tast­ing event.

“While the analy­ses of these emerg­ing experts will not be a fac­tor in the judg­ing, the appren­tice­ship pro­gram will rapidly build upon their skills and expose these tasters to an envi­ron­ment few will ever expe­ri­ence as part of the elite team of NYIOOC judges,” Cord said. ​“If they con­tinue to work hard to develop their mas­tery I have no doubt some will even­tu­ally be called upon to serve on the panel as full mem­bers.”

More infor­ma­tion about the Olive Oil Sommelier Certification Program is avail­able on the Education Lab web­site.