`Third Edition of TerraOlivo Closes in Jerusalem - Olive Oil Times
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Third Edition of TerraOlivo Closes in Jerusalem

By Liz Tagami
Jun. 10, 2012 18:23 UTC

TerraOlivo, the inter­na­tional extra vir­gin olive oil com­pe­ti­tion held in Jerusalem, closed Friday set­ting new heights for its diver­sity of judges and the num­ber and diver­sity of entries. One of the orga­niz­ers, Raúl César Castellani, was pleased.

​“We have attracted the most diverse num­ber of sam­ples and the most diverse panel of jurors in the world,” Castellani said. ​“This past week, pro­fes­sional tasters from ten coun­tries joined us to assess 408 sam­ples from 17 coun­tries – pos­si­bly 18 coun­tries, if we can get a ship­ment released from cus­toms Monday.”

139 sam­ples were Israeli, while 269 oils — or 66 per­cent of the total sam­ples received and judged — were from out of the coun­try. At the time of this writ­ing, 15 sam­ples remained in Israeli cus­toms, includ­ing three from Australia.

“A poten­tial to assess these sam­ples on Monday morn­ing, exists,” accord­ing to co-orga­nizer Haim Gan. ​“Producers work very hard to make good oil and go through con­sid­er­able effort to pre­pare sam­ples for ship­ment. It would be a shame to not give them every oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate. If we can have the logis­tics work and keep to our sched­uled announce­ment of the awards, then we will make every effort to do so.”

Whether 408 entries or 423, and whether 17 coun­tries or 18, this year’s num­bers (with judges from ten coun­tries) eclipsed the even­t’s pre­vi­ous edi­tions. TerraOlivo opened in 2010 with 189 entries from 14 coun­tries, and judges flew in from four nations to add to the Israeli jury that year.

Even with such growth, co-orga­nizer Moshe Spak, TerraOlivo’s direc­tor of inter­na­tional affairs, was not totally sat­is­fied. ​“We had hoped to have entrants from some Arab nations at this year’s com­pe­ti­tion. We wel­come Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and all other olive oil pro­duc­ing nations. If we could have all the coun­tries of the world who pro­duce olive oil par­tic­i­pate in TerraOlivo, only then will I truly be happy with our results.”

TerraOlivo events con­tinue on Sunday with a four-day olive oil and nutri­tion con­fer­ence out­side of Tel Aviv orga­nized by Professor Zohar Kerem of Hebrew University fea­tur­ing speak­ers from around the Mediterranean. Awards for the com­pe­ti­tion will be announced at a cer­e­mony at the con­fer­ence on Monday after­noon.


TerraOlivo’s Raúl César Castellani and Haim Gan

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