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Savantes Introduces Enhanced ‘Frequent Tasters’ Recognition for Associates

Silver. Gold and Platinum Associate Savante Certificates will now be awarded.

Growing and processing olives and olive oil...

Information about planning, planting, pruning, picking and processing olives and olive oil!

Savantes Savourgram © to be Introduced at Savantes Melbourne, March 2023

Visit the Savantes Melbourne Page (www.savantes.org) here

The internationally acclaimed International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savantes Programme will restart in Melbourne with yet another innovation.

With programmes held prepandemic in 11 countries Savantes has introduced the Savantes Skills Test recognising individual tasters, the national Team Tasting Championships in France, Spain and Greece, and the inaugural World Team Tasting Championship held in Spain in 2019.

Now Savantes has developed a new creative multi-dimensional method of tasting and recording extra virgin olive oils.

In the continuing development of the Savantes tasting philosophy we have developed the concept of ‘The Palette of Flavours’ with colours representing the positive characteristics of fruitiness (blue), bitterness (green) and spiciness (red).

To represent the progression of flavours along the palate, a graph has been devised with the vertical axis representing intensity and the horizontal axis representing time in one second intervals.

The first World Champion Extra Virgin Olive Oil Tasting Team is Los Navarros from Spain. The team comprised Roberto Gracia Sagasti, Carlos Gracia Sagasti and Mario Gomara Alfaro – all producers and taste panellists. Second was the Greek LET team of Lykourgos Polychronopoulos, Efstathia Zontanou and Takis Dimitrakopoulos. Lykourgos also became the fifth Savante and the first from Greece. The Greek JNP team were third and tied for fourth were the Team de Nimes from France and Los Narizones from Spain.

The winning Los Navaross team from Navarre, (left to right) Carlos Gracia Sagasti, Roberto Gracia Sagasti, and Mario Gomara Alfaro

The championship was held in Priego de Cordoba, Spain, in Association with the  Association for Quality Control of the Oils of the Region of Priego de Cordoba ((ASCCAL).

Eight competitors achieved Associate Savantes for the first time. The new Associates are Roberto Gracia Sagasti, Carlos Gracia Sagasti, Mario Gomara Alfaro, Isabel Calvache Gisberti, Covadonga Perez Silva from Spain, Julie Carou and Helene Lasserre from France and John Angelis from Greece.

The inaugural World Cup for Extra Virgin Olive Oil Tasting Teams will be held in Priego de Cordoba, Spain on 4th and 5th October, 2019.

The Championship for tasting teams will be the culmination of 5 years of development of National Tasting Team Championships in producing and consuming countries. Championships are currently held in USA, Spain, France, South Africa and Greece. Winning teams from theses countries will be competing in the World Cup. They will be joined by invited teams from other countries coordinated by tasters involved in the International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savantes Network.

The World Cup will be convened by Savantes and co-hosted with the Association for Quality Control of the Oils of the Region of Priego de Cordoba (ASCCAL).

Simon Field, August 2017

One of the unexpected benefits of participating in a Savantes tasting is the occasional opportunity to experience something beyond evaluating olive oil. Such an opportunity arose when attendees at the Seville programme were invited to visit the Juan Ramón Guillén Foundation museum on the outskirts of the city. Our host was Juan González of Hacienda Guzmán, who participated in the Seville programme.

The Foundation was founded in 2011 with the purpose of bringing the rural sector closer to the public with special emphasis on the olive sector. The centrepiece is the Hacienda Guzmán from which the brand of quality extra virgin olive oils takes its name. Six centuries ago, Hernando, the son of Christopher Columbus, produced olive oil on the estate and exported it to America.

Hacienda Guzmán

The stately house is the home to the olive oil museum with a massive beam olive oil press and many of

The Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition provides an opportunity to compare the products entered from the major producing countries and the USA. The Northern Hemisphere segment has just been completed with 516 entries.

The comparative performance of olive oils from countries with over 20 entries shows that Spain outperformed all other countries with 31% of the entries being awarded gold medals.

Reliable data on Australian production and consumption is difficult to obtain. The International Olive Council (IOC) publishes international tables on production, consumption, exports and imports. Analysis of this data alongside that provided by the Australian Olive Association and Australia’s largest producer, Boundary Bend Limited, suggests that the IOC figures overstate Australian consumption of olive oil by up to 30% in some years.

The Australian data in Table 1 extrapolated from the Boundary Bend 2013 Annual Report. The analysis shows that the IOC overstates Australian production with the result that Australian consumption is lower than generally stated by the IOC.

The Australian Olive Association in its industry snapshot for 2012 states ‘Australian apparent consumption of olive oil for the period 2005 to 2012 increased by 16%  to 51,7108 tonnes’, clearly a gross overstatement by approximately 37%.