Olive oil tasting in Madliena Malta
We were invited to take part at an olive oil tasting with the Mediterranean olive oil academy at the beautiful venue of Lalja in the Madliena district of Malta in early July which was hosted by Joseph and Carmen Spiteri. They produce Ta Matti a very fine Maltese olive oil and also have a special interest in the indigenous Maltese Bidni olive variety.
Salvatore Romano who is an olive oil producer from Sicily and also the owner of the well known Tasting Sicily brand led the tasting of six extra virgin olive oils from across the Mediterranean region, the olive oils chosen were from the Marche and Puglian regions of Italy, Sicily, Malta, Spain and another from Greece.
The beautiful venue of Lalja in Madliena hosted this olive oil appreciation class and we have known Joseph and Carmen for some time, it is in a lovely setting overlooking the Mediterranean and has a large olive grove containing several varieties of olives which clients and guests can visit as part of the tour.
We were very pleased that at this first event we have held in Madliena to have several local olive oil producers present at the tasting and also two representatives from the Maltese Tourism Authority who came to learn more about the Mediterranean olive oil academy's courses, classes and tours.
The tastings were carried out in strict accordance with the International tasting methods currently employed by professional olive oil tasters throughout Europe and the rest of the world and we found that the oils from Puglia were much liked by the tasting panel in Madliena.
After the tasting at Lalja we had a special supper which was provided by Carmen and Joseph which all the guests enjoyed and the evening progressed with a discussion about the future of the Maltese indigenous olives, and how we can help with the promotion of Maltese olive oil in other parts of Europe.
The Mediterranean olive oil academy is currently setting up a network of contacts in Malta and will be helping several local Maltese producers with the olive harvest in September.
We are very pleased to have found a lot of interest on Malta with the new academy and we are very happy to be working with Maltese olive oil producers to promote their oils and also plan to hold many more similar events at Lalja and other olive oil producers on the Island in the future.
