Jill Myers grew up on the prairie in Texas, but she studied Italian at the University of Virginia and made several trips to the Mediterranean where she discovered fine art, wonderful wine and acres of olives for oil.
“I started tasting good olive oil for the first time, and it was really eye opening," she recalls. "It represents peace and it represents community, good food and slowing down – the important things in life.”
She befriended a woman who had inherited her family’s groves and was pressing the olives to make extra virgin oil. They bottled it, brought it to Charlottesville and sold it all in 2015-16.
Myers learned that many women were making, bottling and selling olive oil around the world. The global nature of this product is important as climate changes and big producers like Spain, Italy and Greece face drought.
“Brazil now and Chile are big, big players in the world of olive oil. They are new world oils, so they have been growing olives for like ten years." she says. "Australia’s growing so many olives now. California -- well the United State produces five percent of what Americans consume, so another reason why we can’t totally buy local.”
She started a group – Women in Olive Oil – creating a network of sharing and support for nearly 3,400 members from 50 countries. She also secured certification as an olive oil sommelier and, today, judges competitions to identify the best brands.
“To me, olive oil is just this liquid gold that has changed my life!” Myers confesses.
Here in Virginia, she hosts monthly olive oil tastings. Diane and Alex Huss, Nan Myers, Susan and Stan Sloane, Bonita and Blythe Shannon report surprising discoveries – the most likely sources of good olive oil, what you should expect to pay and how best to store it, how the tongue tastes each component of a complex oil, why it might make you cough, what makes it “extra virgin” and how it should smell.
“I wasn’t expecting the fresh grass smell from the good ones. That was a nice surprise.”
“I learned the correct way to taste.”
“Learning that it’s a one or two cough oil – or three, depending on robustness.”
“I think the subtleties between the varieties and the cultivars. I think that was a real education. And you can really taste the differences. I can now. I wouldn’t have known the difference before. One or two of them were a little lighter, and some of those were more robust.”
“The choices that we have at our fingertips that we didn’t know we had is what I’m taking home.”
Myers also explains the many health benefits associated with high quality olive oil. It’s a good, monounsaturated fat that helps reduce inflammation and cholesterol levels, cuts the risk of skin cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Which is why, when they ring in the new year, some people toast with a swallow olive oil and continue the tradition every night, giving their bodies time to absorb the goodness of EVOO as they sleep. Be careful, however. Experts like Jill Myers say it has laxative properties and 120 calories in a single tablespoon.
