Friday Arvo at the Warehouse

Five freshly pressed varieties of Extra Virgin Olive Oil ready for tasting.

One of the great pleasures of this job is the many opportunities it gives us to taste, learn about and discuss great food and wine. This afternoon was a cracker and yet another reason to be pleased I never did end up as a lawyer!


For lunch today we tasted through a new range of Cuca products selected for us by MoVida. Cuca is a Spanish company that preserves seafood. In Australia we often think of tinned seafood as being of inferior quality, however in Spain preserved seafood is highly prized. The Cuca range are perfect for a quick and traditional tapas.

I am happy to say that both the Pulpo (octopus, Galician style with praprika, EVO and sea salt) and the Ventresca (premium belly tuna) passed our taste test with flying colours. We accompanied them with some Whitestone Farm House cheese, local organic olives and piquillo peppers.

After lunch Luke Fitzpatrick, CEO of Clovely Estate, visited to assist us with the blending of our 2011 Extra Virgin Olive Oils. This years crop from the South Burnett has been very, very good! We have been blessed with both large quantities and exceptional quality.

Luke Fitzpatrick talking us through the new oils.

Luke brought along the remnants of yesterdays Chardonnay Day to wash the oil down (and because I insisted he bring booze). They finished off the evening in fine style.

The everything but chardonnay set are missing out. Idiots!!