This might sound a little weird, but I’ve been wanting to host an olive oil tasting party for a long time. I finally did it, and it was just as much fun as I imagined!
Of course, setting the tables was practically just as much fun, so I’ll show you the tables too.
I did take some photos of our lovely guests during the tasting. However, the camera on my phone isn’t really equipped to take night shots. So I won’t be subjecting you to those, but we all had a great time and learned a lot about olive oil too!
Update –
This post is from a couple years ago during the height of the pandemic, so some parts aren’t too applicable anymore. But I thought I’d leave it as-is, just so we can remember those days and be grateful things are better now. The things we learned about how to stay safe together, though, could still be useful in situations where someone needs to keep their distance, so there’s that! 😊
Olive Oil Tasting at a Distance
We’ve been having some wonderful little dinner parties during the pandemic, using my Safe Face to Face Entertaining system for social distancing. (If you want to grab the checklist, you can get it in the Members Library. If you’re not already a Mantel and Table member, you can sign up when you get there.)
One of the basic tenants of the system is, of course, separate tables for each family group. For this party, that makes it double the fun!
I was going for fresh, clean, and minimal, and I also wanted to add to the olive oil vibe. So, green and white!
Olive Tablescapes for Our Olive Oil Tasting
It only took a couple olive green accents to pull off the look. These dark olive placemats were the perfect base layer. And the lighter, dusty olive napkins really freshened things up.
I was so happy to find these lovely faux olive branches too! Aren’t they cool? I’d never seen anything like them, and I just happened to get them in my local grocery (and everything else) store. We love our Fred Meyer stores here in the western US! But if you don’t have Fred Meyer, you can get them online at Amazon. Faux Olive Branches.
Comfy chair cushions were a final olive touch. You can see a bit of one on the chair below. These are fabulously comfy, and luxuriously smooth velvety memory foam. I can’t say enough about how much I love them!
Simple and Lovely Flower Arrangements
Just because you have two separate tables, doesn’t mean you have to have twice as many flowers. Especially since the tables are usually smaller, I take my usual amount of flowers and split them in half. Two smaller versions of what would be a larger arrangement on a regular sized dinner table.
These arrangements only used two items. The faux olive branches I mentioned above, and white alstroemeria. (Which is beautiful, reasonably inexpensive, and lasts a really long time!) This bunch was new, but when they open in a couple days, they’re even lovelier.
The Olive Oil Tasting Itself!
And now that we’ve set our tables, let’s taste some olive oil! I know it might seem a little strange to taste olive oil, but it’s really fun and interesting. Especially if you’re an enthusiastic cook – or eater! It’s exactly the same concept as a wine tasting; “Tasting” being the key word here. I’ll get into that more in a minute.
We started out with four different olive oils. The two below, I got from a local olive oil shop called Benessere. Each table had their own two little bottles.
I also poured two other varieties out of regular sized bottles. However, I didn’t leave those on the tables – they just weren’t as cute!
So as I mentioned above, olive oil tastings really can involve “tasting” the oils on their own. Apparently, they have special little blue olive oil tasting glasses that pro tasters use. I imagine you can buy those online, but these little stemless Riedels worked just fine. Plus they matched my tablescape much better!
The Four S’s
The official tasting process involves the 4 S’s – Swirl, Sniff, Slurp, & Swallow. We did all those things, and laughed quite a bit doing them! Unlike wine, you cup the glass in your hand to warm it, and cover the top while you swirl. Then take your hand away fast, and inhale to get the various scents and intensity.
It was so interesting to sip the oils plain. We got lots of different flavors and qualities in each one. But I have to admit, for my first foray into olive oil tasting, I could really only take a couple small sips of each glass, then move on to the bread round! Which was equally fascinating. Even with the bread, all the different flavors were easy to pick out.
Olive Oil Flavors
When I say Flavors, I don’t mean oils that are flavored when you buy them – like with herbs or fruits. I actually love flavored oils, but for this olive oil tasting, we used unadulterated extra virgin.
I researched several lists of prevalent flavors and qualities. The Oliviers and Co website was one of my favorites and has a ton of information if you want to learn more.
I printed this list in the photo below from their site, and we each recorded what we tasted and sensed, then compared. We came up with some of our own descriptions too, which were a little more “creative” than the standards!
Dinner After the Tasting
Our After-Tasting dinner included a couple different olive oils too. For our salad, we had field greens with pears, raspberries, gorgonzola, and walnuts. And of course, one of the olive oils in the dressing.
Our main dish was a sheet pan dinner. Those sheet pan dinners are so easy – and delicious! We had one with chicken, new potato, asparagus, tomato, and basil pesto. Mmmm.
Dessert was going to be creme brulee, but we ended up not brulee-ing them, so I guess it was just creme! But the creamy vanilla custard was perfect all by itself.
A Lovely Olive Oil Tasting
We had a fabulous night, and it was great to see the friends we haven’t seen in so long! We certainly learned a lot and found a couple new favorites during our olive oil tasting! It really piqued my interest in finding out more about olive oils. Who knew they were so fun?
I’d love to hear about your adventures with “tastings.” Has anyone else done olive oils, or any other kind of tasting? Tell us in the Comments below.
I’ll leave you with a final tablescape on the porch, all set up for a fun olive oil tasting!
Save The Olive Oil Tasting Party For Later
This Post Shared With
- Tablescape Thursday #650 – Hosted by Between Naps on the Porch
- Thursday Favorite Things 03.11.21 – Hosted by Follow the Yellow Brick Home
- Friday with Friends #13 – Hosted by My Hubbard Home
- Tuesday Turn About #91 – Hosted by Thistle Key Lane
- Tablescape Thursday 04.13.23 – Hosted by Between Naps on the Porch
- Thursday Favorite Things 04.13.23 – Hosted by Katherine’s Corner
What a great way to try something new! And good to learn something about olive oils — since I’m not the cook in our house I don’t know a thing about them (and I’m no longer sent to the grocery store to get them LOL).
Haha! I don’t usually cook either – only when I want to. Aren’t we lucky to have other people who do that? Now if I could just find your secret to get out of the shopping … ! 🤣 So glad you popped over Sandra! Have a great week!
This is such a cool idea Barbara – I’m not quite sure how I missed commenting on this post before! I think I’m getting forgetful or something but I do remember thinking that those olive branches were such the perfect touch. The salad looks delicious but that pan sheet – oh my! It looks fabulous. I’ll have to look and see if you posted the recipe. Who would have ever thought that there would be such a thing a social distancing parties but I’m glad that you all had a fantastic time. Happy Thursday my friend!
Ha! You are not alone – I can’t even remember when I actually post something! 🤣 I don’t think I did post the recipe – I’ll have to go back and remember what I did. I’ll either post it or send it to you. Those pan dinners are so easy and fun! Hope you have a great weekend – only 8 more hours!
What a unique dinner party idea, Barbara! It looks amazing!
We had a great time! But if you try it, have lots of bread handy! You can only sip so much plain olive oil! 😊 Hope you’re having a lovely week Marieza – thanks so much for stopping by!
I love this idea. It sounds like so much fun. Hugs to you.
Hi Renae! It really was fun, and so interesting! Thanks so much for stopping by – hugs back! 😊
Barbara thanks for adding this to the Friday with Friends link party.
I def making the dish with pesto.
And coming back to take a second look at the table, noticed how you put the wine glasses in the little white bowls. That’s a real cute touch.
It’s not nearly warm enough to dine outside in ID 🙁
We will need to wait until the beginning of, or mid-May.
RR
Oooh – let me know how you like the sheet pan chicken pesto! I couldn’t believe how easy it was! Hope your spring comes early and you can eat outside soon! Thanks so much for stopping by Rachelle – I always love to see you!
This look so fun!
Hi Amber! It really was fun – who knew there were that many different qualities to olive oil? 🙂 So sweet of you to stop by! Happy Saturday!
Barbara, this is such a creative idea! I never knew olive oils could be so complex which makes me even more excited to try this idea at my house. I love the way you have all the tables set up and I can’t get over the faux branches either. They look real! Love your heart for hospitality. This looks like so much fun. Hugs, CoCo
Hi CoCo! It was so fun – you would love it. Let me know how it goes! Thanks so much for stopping by – I’m heading over to Crowned Goat right now! Happy Saturday!
What a fun idea for a dinner party Barbara! I love the faux olive branches to match your theme and pairing them with the white alstromeria looks so pretty! So interesting about the olive oil having distinctly different tastes, I didn’t realize they could vary so much. I have been to several tastings, and my favorites were annual parties my daughter and I had with her friends and mine, they were called “Cook Your App Off” and every couple brought an appetizer. We all sampled and tasted each one and voted for the winners, with several categories like Best Tasting, Most Creative, Best Presentation and Good Try! She is hoping to have another one once it’s safe to gather again, and I can’t wait, it is so much fun!
Oh that sounds like a blast, Jenna! I love the name! 😉 I was so happy to find those branches. Sometimes the right thing just appears! Happy Friday and Weekend!!
What a fascinating dinner idea! I learned a lot from this post! Your dinner sounds quite delicious too! What fun for you and your friends. Thanks for sharing!
Hi! It was so interesting – I learned a ton about olive oil preparing for it! I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the dessert though – that was the best! 😉 Happy Friday my friend!
What a fun party idea, Barbara. I like the printout with the olive oil info, and your main dish looks so yummy. Do you toss the pesto in then roast it, or does it get added after the chicken and veggies are roasted?
It was super fun! I put a little pesto on it while it was cooking, then added some more after roasting. It was a little extra depth of pesto-ness that was really tasty! 🙂 Hope you have a lovely weekend!
This is fun. I have done Olive oil tastings at an event but not home.
It’s a fun and different idea.
Cindy
Hi Cindy! Were you able to sip the straight olive oil ok? That was a tricky part for me, but it did get easier as I went along! 🙂 Here’s to more fun & different get togethers soon!
Very cool idea. I have seen olive oil tastings in retail stores but never attended one. Our tastings usually are related to alcohol some how 😉
HA! Ours too!! But you know me – I can taste just about anything! 😉 Thanks so much for stopping over – I’m setting aside time to catch up on your beautiful website tomorrow. Happy Weekend!
What a fun idea. I can’t wait to try this out. I love olive oil and I have never thought of that for a party. I CAN’T wait to see people again. The pale green linens and place mats look so pretty.
Hi Andrea! I wouldn’t have thought of it either, except we had the beautiful gift bottles all lined up just waiting for something fun! 🙂 We’ve been able to see a few people at a time with the mask & distance system, and it’s been really great. You should come up for a distance dinner one night! 🙂 Happy Weekend my friend!
What a fun idea Barbara! I had never thought about doing something like this, and I’m going to add it to my list of party ideas 🙂 Thanks for sharing
Hi my friend! It was really fun – I bet you’d love it! Happy Friday, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend over there!
IS IT WARM ENOUGH TO DINE OUTSIDE IN OREGON?OR DO YOU HAVE HEAT LAMPS?
CUTE TABLES!
NO, I MARRIED A REAL ITALIAN 100% WE GET OUR COOKING OLIVE OIL AT COSTCO HE CONFIRMS IT IS OKAY AND OUR SALAD OIL COMES FROM ITALIANS IN THE WINE COUNTRY IN NAPA.
IF I GAVE HIM SAY LEMON OLIVE OIL HE WOULD CRINGE!FROM WHAT I KNOW THE INFUSION OF OILS IS AN AMERICAN THING!
SO NO TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION NO TASTINGS HERE……….JUST PASTA TO START THAN ON TO THE MAIN COURSE!THE REAL ITALIAN MEAL ALWAYS ENDS WITH FRUIT.THEN THE DESSERT!
HAPPY TO HEAR YOUR ENTERTAINING!
WE ARE STILL WAITING ON THOSE DARN SHOTS!!
XX
Ha Elizabeth – you always make me laugh! I’m sure a real Italian has definite opinions about olive oil! I’d love to eat at your table someday! 😉 It’s ALMOST warm enough to eat outside here! We have heaters and blankets for the time being. And we’re being VERY careful about masking and distancing. I hope you’re feeling better over there, and that you get your shots soon! Here’s to fruit and dessert!