Gino Celletti speaks about olive oil in the same way wine connoisseurs speak about wine. Perhaps he does it because he is also a wine connoisseur and runs an oil bar restaurant café in the heart of Milan.
Dr Celletti was brought over to Gozo by Gozo Cottage over the weekend to conduct olive oil tasting sessions, speak at a seminar about olive oil and meet people interested in the sector in an open day at Gozo Cottage held in Xewkija.
In his restaurant one finds about 14 different types of olive oil from different regions in Italy and he cooks regional dishes using oil from the same region where the oil comes from.
Gozo Cottage is run by Reuben Curmi and Antoine Portelli, who are working to produce and promote genuine produce from Gozo which can eventually be exported.
Dr Celletti argues one should learn how to taste olive oil in the same way people have learnt how to appreciate wine.
"Olive oil can vary in taste and different kinds of olive oil can enhance or destroy flavours. Coupling the right oil with food is an art you have to learn. It's like dressing with taste: Italians taught the world how to match colours, clothes and accessories. Now we are doing the same with olive oil. You should not use the same olive oil to season a fresh mozzarella or a delicate salty bass or a lamb chop. Olive oil can make the flavours more palatable. I even serve ice cream with olive oil and though people's first reaction is one of disbelief, when they taste it they always ask for a second helping," he said.
Dr Celletti was impressed by the quality of oil that has been produced from olives harvested in Gozo. Three different oils were produced this year, one of which is organic oil.
"One of the tricks that tells you whether an olive oil has been refined or not is its spiciness. If an olive oil leaves a spicy aftertaste, it means the oil has not been refined," he says.
Gozo Cottage has been more renowned for its Limuncell so far but olive oil production has been increasing. The idea of producing olive oil had been in Mr Curmi's mind for some time, ever since he had set up a small environment group in Nadur focusing on flora. He started planting olive trees but as there was not much land available where he could do that around Nadur he started trying to convince farmers to plant more.
"It was not an easy task as the belief that olive trees are slow growing and their fruit would not be available before many years was quite widespread. So I encouraged the council to offer trees for free and, in the first year, 150 trees were planted. The following year, the council offered trees at half price, and within three years, an average of 1,000 trees a year were being planted. Other local councils embarked on twinning agreements and brought more trees from Italy and I reckon that over the past few years about 25,000 trees have been planted, half of which were imported by us," he said.
Gozo Cottage is drawing up agreements with farmers and guaranteeing a minimum price for the next 10 years, just as wine makers do.
"It does not cost one much to have a grove with, say, 50 trees. With about Lm200 you can have the trees and a proper irrigation system in place and we support them with advice about which type of olive tree is best suited for the terrain and about how to take care of the trees," Mr Curmi explained.
"Both the EU subsidy and the guaranteed minimum price mean that farmers get a decent return. But farmers have to realise they can't expect the phenomenal returns some are speaking about. It is not the shelf price they see in supermarkets and which consumers abroad are prepared to pay they have to look at but the prices that wholesalers abroad are paying. Wholesalers in the UK and other European countries pay about €4 (Lm1.60) a litre for very good quality olive oil, which is a far cry from the Lm6 a litre that some expect.
"Another thing producers have to keep in mind is that people won't buy Maltese olive oil simply because it's Maltese but because its as good as, or perhaps better, than others they are used to buying," he said.
Gozo Cottage have invested in an oil press that processes 500 kilos of olives an hour and the machine ensures that olives are pressed at a constant temperature and that the oil does not come into contact with air.
"One of the things top manufacturers teach you is that olive oil is at its best when it is still in the olive and that you are ruining it in the process of pressing it, so you have to do your best to ruin it as least as possible in the process," he said.
Pressing olives as soon as possible after the harvest is one of the best things one can do and here is where locally grown olives have an advantage, because distances between the groves and the press are rather short.
Some olives are more suited for pressing than others and Gozo Cottage is striving to work on five imported varieties and three local ones that have a decent yield of oil that is palatable.
"We are working on olive varieties such as the Coratina. In Italy, Coratina has a very bitter taste that it is often blended with other 'flat' oil to liven it. But because of local soil and climatic conditions, oil from such olives in Malta is much more palatable than that in Italy and does not need to be blended."
The oil pressed this year from Coratina has an acidity level of 0.17 when the maximum acceptable limit is 0.8.
"The acidity test tells you nothing about palate. It just tells you about how well the production process was. That's why it is important to have low acidity as that tells you that the quality of olives was good and that the pressing process was equally good," he said.
Gozo Cottage will be exporting some olive oil to the US this year and after participating in a big food fair in Germany they have a number of prospective clients.
"We need to work on our olive oil industry if we want to revive it. Within the next five to eight years we will have higher production levels. But unless we produce good quality, palatable, olive oil at the right price, we cannot hope to make any headway. We have to compete with established oils and we are not alone in this business. If we keep all this in mind, I am convinced we can succeed to put Maltese oil back on the map," he said.