A Culinary Exploration of New Oils in Paris

Olio Nuovo Days (OND), a bian­nual gas­tro­nomic event, is a gleam­ing con­cept that’s been rais­ing inter­est among olive oil afi­ciona­dos and pro­duc­ers. It was founded in 2015 by Emmanuelle Dechelette, a lover of culi­nary art and a pas­sion­ate busi­ness­woman, who came up with the orig­i­nal idea as a way to announce and bring to pub­lic atten­tion the newest har­vests of the Liquid Gold.

In today’s bustling mar­kets, many con­sumers are con­fused about which olive oil to choose and on which char­ac­ter­is­tics to base their choice (where the olives grew, ripeness, and pro­cess­ing method). But what if they could taste each new har­vest and then decide which suits best their palates and olfac­tory senses? An excit­ing, cre­ative and plea­sur­able con­cept, OND gives us the means to dis­tin­guish dif­fer­ent styles of oils. By tast­ing and by dis­cov­er­ing the dif­fer­ent places and vari­eties from which they orig­i­nate, we are able to know what gives oils their spe­cific styles.
See Also:The best olive oils from France

After a suc­cess­ful first edi­tion held in Paris last year, the sec­ond edi­tion of OND ​‘Hémisphère Nord’ will be held on January 17 – 21, 2017, offer­ing an unprece­dented taste expe­ri­ence. In five days, renowned restau­rants will include in their menus a dish inspired by the selected Olios Nuovos.

Through blind tast­ing, each chef will pick his favorite olive oil from a selec­tion of the best pro­duc­tions and then use it as an inspi­ra­tional star ingre­di­ent in his dish. The blind tast­ing allows for an unbi­ased opin­ion mak­ing the chef focus on indi­vid­ual aspects of an oil.

Another inter­est­ing and ludic aspect of this jour­ney are the tast­ings hosted in dif­fer­ent bak­eries around the city. Led by stu­dents of the Superior School of Perfumery of Paris (a part­ner of OND), they will dis­cuss the often neglected olfac­tory dimen­sion to the tast­ing process.

The pre­view of the sec­ond edi­tion was held at a press con­fer­ence on November 28, gath­er­ing many inter­est­ing per­son­al­i­ties at Antoine de Macedo’s charis­matic watch bou­tique in the 6^th dis­trict of Paris:

The pres­i­dent of the Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Products (AVPA), Jean-Emmanuel Jouard, was present at the event. ​“AVPA has been work­ing in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with us on mak­ing this project grow,” said Dechelette. ​“OND has grown in two years. I want to cre­ate a solid rela­tion­ship with pro­duc­ers based on trust and this takes time.”

Also present were Pastry chef and owner of BO, Olivier Haustraete; baker and owner of Panifica, François Brault and many inter­na­tional and local pro­duc­ers, among oth­ers.

From the olive oils exposed were the new har­vests from Anna Marina Gioacchini’s domain, Le Amantine, (Tuscania, Italy). Le Amantine is a range of three extra-vir­gin olive oils (Unico, Taléa, Amantino). The oils dif­fer in their vari­eties (Frantoio, Leccino and Canino) among many other fac­tors. Frantoio, for instance, is known to offer a rich taste rem­i­nis­cent of arti­chokes. Le Amantine’s olio nuovo was bap­tized Raccolto, to be tasted in January 2017.

Mounir Boussetta’s domain, Segermès, (Zaghouan, Tunisia) offers fruity green olive oils from two vari­eties: Chemali (with and with­out pits) and Beldi. Segermès extra-vir­gin olive oil has a fla­vor­some bit­ter taste with an exquis­ite pun­gency. This oil has obtained inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion by AVPA, in Paris.

Local pro­duc­ers Guillaume and Paolo Chabot, father and son, cul­ti­vate organic crops in their domain, Moulin Bonaventure, located in the Valensole plateau of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. They will be par­tic­i­pat­ing for the first time in January.

Olive oil afi­ciona­dos and curi­ous con­sumers should save the dates. The list of the selected restau­rants and bak­eries will be pub­lished on OND’s web­site by the end of December.

• “Olio Nuovo Days”


• “The Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Products”