- Sixteen jurors including chefs, olive oil specialists, journalists, tasters or simple amateurs had to decide between the 34 exceptional oils selected as part of the "Olio Nuovo Days".
- The "best" of these oils does not come from the Mediterranean basin, but from Japan. The "most original" too.
- The olive in Japan is the subject of a very small production, and is also used to feed the famous wagyu beef ...
The best olive oil of the year to begin? The “Taggiasca” of Toyohiro Takao. And the most original? The "Lucca" of the same Toyohiro Takao. The Japanese producer on the island of Shodoshima, in central Japan, has 2,000 olive trees which produce 700 liters of olive oil. A drop in the ocean of oils produced worldwide each year…
To decide between the best of these fresh and crisp oils, the "Olio Nuovo Days", which have been celebrating for four years in France the arrival of new olive oil from the different countries of the Northern Hemisphere, had convened , this Thursday morning, a jury made up of specialists from around the world and amateurs in which 20 Minutes was able to participate.
During a long blind tasting, all these beautiful people agreed to say that the "R", with its great delicacy and its notes of candied red fruit, deserved to be voted best olive oil of this selection. And that the “green sticker”, in a more assertive register than the previous one, was the most original.
Toyohiro Takao is no stranger
Simple chance or true convergence of talent? It is therefore the same Japanese producer who received the two awards. Toyohiro Takao is not unknown since his oil had already won the Olio Nuovo Days prize, under the same “blind” conditions in 2018 and slid onto the second step of the podium in 2019. This time, it is a Slovenian oil which came in second position.
This craze for Japanese olive oil comes from the heart of Emmanuelle Dechelette, the founder and organizer of "Olio Nuovo Days". “I met the president of the association of Japanese olive oil sommeliers at a fair in Madrid in 2017, explains to 20 Minutes the one who runs after the best olive oils all year round. He had brought three mini-bottles… I brought back the little that was left in each of them so that French chefs could taste them. Some loved it… ”Like Julien Dumas, the chef of Lucas Carton, who immediately took it.
"An oil as close as possible to the taste of the olive" for Julien Dumas
“I appreciate this oil because it is as close as possible to the taste of the olive, confided Julien Dumasen 2018 to 20 Minutes . Toyo oil is a very precise oil, very clear and very delicate at the same time, and as often with the Japanese, very respectful of the natural product. We can always dream of "seeing her perfectly sublimate a sea bream carpaccio", as the chef advises ...
But we can also pester that this confidential production is still almost impossible to find outside of Japan, except during events such as the Olio Nuovo Days. The good news is that we will avoid breaking the bank by paying 300 euros for a single liter of this very precious nectar.
Interest dating back to 1900
And at least we will not have wasted our time recalling the legend that France is indirectly the source of the Japanese passion for olive oil. "They would have had the idea of producing it after having tasted one at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900," says Emmanuelle Dechelette…
After an aborted first attempt, olive oil production only took off in the 1950s. "And there, the olive is not only used to make oil, but also to feed the wagyu beef. " It is indeed the only beef in the world fed on cereals enriched with Japanese olive cake. The meat is all the more rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, oleic and linoleic acids, with an omega 3 / omega 6 ratio among the highest in Japan, and therefore in the world.
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