“In matters of taste there is no dispute”...

Liz Tagami is a 6th generation Californian, who has been involved in defining and nurturing the Lucero Olive Oil brand for over 16 years. She’s a specialty food and veteran with 4 decades of international business experience. She and her husband, Donald, now own the Lucero Olive oil brand and American Olive Farmer website for all things olive oil related!

In our continuation from last weeks' awesome conversation, join us as we sip both wine and olive oil with HOMEMADE PIZZA (Best.Interview. Ever!). We chat about:

• Different Pairing combos with pizza and olive oil
• What's Cold-pressed and is it better?
• Differences in types of olives around the world
• Tips on what to look for on Olive Oil Labels to ensure quality
• Parallels between wine and olive oil tasting

You can follow Liz @lucerooliveoil and@merchantadventurer

While you're at it... are you following me @nikkilamberti and @sollevatowines ???

Visit https://americanolivefarmer.com/ and use code NIKKI$10 for $10 off your order though June 30, 2024. Grab the highly aromatic and unique Ascolano and the fresh and green Arbequina oil...and you can even subscribe and save!

Purchase my perfect pizza pairing Sollevato Sangiovese and Use code PODLISTENER for 10% off your order 

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Now, did you put the Escalano on your pizza yet?

I'm going to do that now.

Okay.

Let's do that.

Oh, Michael's going to be so bummed that he's not here today for this.

Sorry, Michael.

That's what you get for going golfing.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

The fruit.

You know, this is something we should do more often in my household, just these kinds of side by sides, same food, because it really, Just like a whole different critter

Welcome to your olive oil 102 or is it 202 just a note I am so much of a nerd and I overthink things so much then when I was naming this episode to be the conclusion, the sequel of the Olive Oil 101.

I got stuck on, well, if you took a second level course in college and the same topic, is it 102 or two or two?

I don't know.

The interweb says both.

So we're going with Olive Oil 102.

So first of all, this is part two in the series clearly.

And if you skipped part one from last week, stop, go back, go back one week.

We'll be here when you come back.

But I want you to get that awesome foundation with Liz Tagami.

She is from Northern California and she is a wonderful resource when it comes to all things olive oil because of her many, many years working as a consultant and a broker and a merchant.

And now she and her husband, Donald, as you heard, have their own company.

They've taken over the Lucero olive oil brand and they have Americanolivefarmer.

com, which is their marketplace.

And they've been kind enough to give us a discount code, which I shared at the end of last week's episode.

If you missed it, just go to AmericanOliveFarmer.

com and use the code NICKY$ 10 to get 10 off your order.

The beautiful Arbequina or Ascalano oils that we talk about, or some beautiful accessories.

Go check it out.

She's been so kind to share that with us.

So in your 102 today, we've left you hanging a little bit last week.

We set the foundation, talked about quality of olive oil, answered some listener questions, and we were about to taste them.

And that's where we're going to pick up with today.

And Liz and I had both prepared our own homemade pizza margarita.

And what you'll hear right as we kick it off in this episode is talking about drizzling the different oils on that pizza and the difference does it make and do they taste different and, you know, it's really hard work, but we did it for you and you'll hear our thoughts.

We're also going to finish up the last of the listener questions that were sent in for Liz.

So, uh, listen for your shout out.

We also tackle topics like the term cold pressed and what does that mean and is that a thing?

And you'll hear me have some light bulbs in this episode as I really come to terms with the parallels between wine tasting and olive oil tasting and just the processes.

Had a big aha moment.

So really excited to present to you part two with Liz Tagami.

Here we go with your olive oil 102.

I'm so happy to be here this afternoon doing this with you and having this olive oil in my hand and about to be in my mouth.

This is so awesome.

Thank you.

If we were on a taste panel and judging oils against each other, we would take a slice of green apple for the pectin content and the acid.

It would clear our palates, add a little sip of water, a little bit of fizzy water.

We're doing something different today, and because we're going to the pleasures, of course we're not reading Zoell's book.

Brine and pizza.

But what I think it would be really fun, I'm glad you suggested pizza margarita, because one of the things that we find is that however the oil tastes out of the glass, or out of the tablespoon, if you're going to do it that way in the morning, is it transforms food.

So, how this pizza will taste with tomato, basil, and cheese, Donald made a high hydration crust.

Oh, Donald,

you're hiding up a little sweetheart who's a professional cook.

That one.

Yeah.

Well, professional now that, you know, he works for me, but, but yeah, he had all that restaurant and catering experience.

Let's stay with oil by itself first before we introduce pizza.

And just so our listeners know, the reason the margarita pizza came to be in this tasting Um, you were asking about pairing with my Solovato Sangiovese and what was a nice food pairing with that, which is where the pizza came up.

Um, cause it is just classic with, you know, anything tomato based.

And then we kind of looped it all together between the pairing of the wine with the food and the olive oil.

Like that's where that came to be.

So thank you for asking about the perfect Sangiovese pairing with Solovato.

The Ascolano?

Ascolano.

That sounds Italian.

Italian.

Ascolano comes from the Le Marche region, which is northern Italy.

It is north.

Do you know what's so cool

about that is a couple of weeks ago I interviewed Travis Ramazzotti from the Ramazzotti family in Dry Creek that we purchased our Sangiovese grapes from and that family is from the Le Marche region in Italy.

How fun is that?

That

is way cool.

And In Le Marche, which is north of Tuscany, it's kind of closer to the Adriatic side.

They grow this olive and it's used as a table olive.

They don't make oil from it.

It is a big fat olive, kind of rounder than if you were to classically draw an olive, very high water content as well, but lower oil content.

And in La Marque, they stuff them with meat and deep fry them.

Okay.

I mean, it's a D.

O.

P.

food, which I've never had.

Way to go, my beautiful, nice choice.

Ascalano was planted in California as a table olive in the middle of the 20th century.

And the cannery started rejecting them because they are, were too soft and they would bruise and didn't can well.

So it became something that out of born of necessity that farmers in our county began to make oil out of Ascolano.

The yields are lower than traditional oil olives, but the flavor is unique.

I will mention as an aside, as we warm the Ascolano in our hands, the.

The largest canned table olive company in the world is in Spain.

And the second largest in the world is in Corning, about seven minutes from my house.

That's where you live.

That's where I live.

That's why, you know, that's why the, the Ascolano olive, which is now widely planted for oil as well, has become popular.

I hmm.

Mm hmm.

For you just to just get the aroma now and oh my God,

it smells totally different.

It's fruitier, it's,

it's remarkably, it's, it is, yeah.

It's,

oh my goodness.

Fruitier on

the nose.

So there's more intensity there.

And also the character of it is unusual.

You don't get this in any other olive, and that's what makes it sort of a cult.

All of, cause it's unexpected.

We can't keep this in stock in Tokyo.

They, they are nuts for this.

And if I gave you the descriptors here, I think it's the only fair cause your listeners can't even hear us smelling here.

I'm like a

peach.

Repair.

Very, very good, very good.

It's a stone fruit.

Most people detect peach first.

Some people get some tropical notes from it, but when Ascolano is ripe, it expresses itself this way.

If you have a little bit of green Ascolano in it, it gives you some herb, some green herby sensations as well.

And so our signature is to have.

Mostly ripe with some green sensations to give it some structure, you know, you get some structure.

Gotcha.

So, uh, I'm going to go ahead and, um, taste the soil now.

And immediately I'm getting more bitterness.

And I'm getting a little bit more pungency.

Ooh.

Definitely more bitter, that low note of bitterness, for lack of a better way to describe it.

Buttery, just like, silky in my mouth.

All these are very clean in your mouth.

There's no, there's no thickness of age to these.

You know, they'll thicken later, the way we all do when we get older.

Amen to that.

But um,

Wow.

I keep staring at my pizza.

Okay, should we do some pizza?

What I'd like to do Is on one slice, just put my Arbequina and taste, well, you know what, I should taste the pizza without

oil.

So did Donald make pizza dough?

He did.

He did a high hydration dough.

Oh, you said that right.

And, um, tasting it, so he made it very, very thin crust and big open crispy ends here.

Okay.

Very tasty.

I have to have a second bite.

I had, um, two bites and I was going to put a little bit of Arbequina on.

And I tasted it.

By itself and now I'm tasting it.

I'm just, I have a little bit more in my glass.

I'm pouring it on the pizza.

I can't eat pizza without olive oil to drizzle on top, especially on the crust.

And those last bites, it's my favorite thing to do.

I get a mild greenness.

That does enhance it.

Just that's that one little bit of complexity.

Mm.

Do you know the Italian word, scarpetta?

Mm hmm.

Little shoe, right?

Mm.

So, you know, the nice thing about this is that you've got the end of the pizza and you've got a little bit of oil there.

You know, there's no topping left.

You just got the end.

The oil is great with that.

Mm hmm.

People love to dip their bread in oil.

Mm.

The freshness with the oil on there.

I feel like I want a sip of Sangiovese now too.

I agree.

Cheers.

Salute Thursday.

Salute.

Oh, baby, this is a good life.

Look at what we made, Liz!

I know, right?

Look at our I went back, and I was looking at some of your posts from, you know, your production and your, the inspiration, and I just got such a warm feeling, Nikki, you know?

I'm so, I say this in a way that doesn't sound matronizing, but I'm so proud of you.

You know, but you made that, that you had this, they say thoughts become things and it'd be, you know, with Disney and it tastes you're the super Tuscan and resolve to learn something and do something.

I mean, that's good for you and you're

doing it.

I feel like we're, uh, two birds of a feather because you very much have done the same thing too from that.

You quote the conference in 2008, but I love the pivotal moment.

Of the buyer and William Sonoma who said, call these people and find out what kind of olives.

I think that was actually a big pivotal moment right there.

Made a

change, you know, and I think, you know, as I go through and, and, uh, I can share the first time I was at a trade show and somebody poured for me in blue glasses and I was there in my, you know, Designer suit and high heels and, you know, over caffeinated and too much to do.

And he says, I want to pour this for you and we were swirling and it was like, uh, you know, I was like, I needed to keep walking the trade show and it's like, I couldn't tell the difference.

You know, it's not the best tasting circumstance anyway, but I didn't have the capacity as a wine taster.

You're so far ahead just because you.

Focus on aroma and flavor and finish anyway.

Now, did you put the Escalano on your pizza yet?

I'm going to do that now.

Okay.

Let's do that.

Oh, Michael's going to be so bummed that he's not here today for this.

Sorry, Michael.

That's what you get for going golfing.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

The fruit, you know, this is something we should do more often in my household.

Just these kinds of side by sides, same food, because.

It really is like a whole different critter.

It's almost like the acidity up to the tomato on there, and we have some really good tomatoes on here.

Without fruit notes in the Escalano, it almost makes it have like a, like a sweetness when, when you introduce the, the fat of the cheese and the acid of the tomato.

Really

good call.

Mm hmm.

I was just going to say it's like a bowl of fruity pebbles.

That's awesome too.

You're welcome.

Can I ask you another listener

question?

Listener questions.

Please.

I think that we, we've kind of talked around this, but I want to make sure that we answer this for Sandy.

Sandy had two questions.

Which olive oil is the healthiest for you?

I think we determined EVOO, extra virgin, as far as healthiest.

Was that fair to say from our earlier conversation?

Extra virgin.

Well, in terms of a grade, you would start there.

Yeah.

I would say fresh extra virgin.

That's the important part, the freshness.

Because the health benefits will decline as the oil ages, oxidizes.

But the second part of Sandy's question, What is the difference between Greek and Italian?

And Sandy's family is from Sicily, so I'm not surprised.

Okay.

She's asking this question.

How would you answer that

question?

I want to go back a little bit to healthy, fresh, extra virgin and say, Okay.

Different olive varieties have naturally different levels of phenolic content.

So, if you're looking at health and let's say that, that they're all fresh and they're all well made and they're all well stored, Corotina, as an example, has a higher phenolic content than Arbikina.

Arbikina is so popular, not just because it's lower cost to produce because of the mechanical harvesting and pruning and everything else, but it also is more accessible to the American palate who grew up on Wesson.

Right.

If you have, if you, if you're, if you're only used to seed oils that have no flavor or rancid oils, an Arbikina that's somewhat sweet and mild is very accessible.

So that is part of the success of places like California on a branch and there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, that's the Arbikina is our everyday oil at home because it's the best value per ounce and it goes with a lot of things.

In Italy, Cortina comes in the South, a little bit further North East than Sicily.

In Sicily, they have an amazing olive called Nocerella del Balice.

Ooh, say it again.

Say it again.

Ooh, say

it again.

I'm gonna, I've already messed it up.

It's good.

Okay, I'm gonna have another sip of wine because I'm already feeling this.

The Sangiovese makes you sound more Italian.

It's a magical.

Si!

Well, Nocerella.

Del Beliche.

Okay.

Beautiful.

And the no charrella.

And I'm, you know, I think I'm mangling it because I am now, you know, half a glass in and I'm Asian.

So we don't, we don't metabolize wine very well.

So the main difference is that there are different varieties that are native to these areas.

Most of the olives that are oil olives in Greece are kouriniki.

Kouriniki is a tiny little olive.

Um, with a lot of oil and a lot of flavor and Greek oil can be powerful and beautiful.

As long as you've got a mill that can process appropriately.

Because one of the biggest challenges to anybody in a Mediterranean climate, if you're near the water, is that the olive fly thrives.

So if you don't have a way to mitigate olive fly, and there are organic ways to do that, You have a real chance of having some sort of problem with the oil itself, where the fly gets in there and the, the defect is called grubby because you're actually tasting little critters.

And so, you know.

I learned two words today, fustiness and grubby, grubbiness.

Grubbiness.

So with Greek oil, I would say that it's a matter of taste.

You know, if you have a well made Greek oil, it's just going to be the flavor of corniche, which tends to be a little bit like banana is the sensation there.

If you have an Italian oil, there are hundreds of varieties of oil.

So, if you are in Tuscany, the common varieties are Frantoio, Licino, Pendolino, and Moriello.

But, to be DOP Tuscany, The percentage of Frantoio to Lachino is different than if you go to Umbria, which may have the same varieties, but they like more Lachino.

And so what you would experience is, okay, Lachino has a little bit of cinnamon quality to it and Frantoio is a little bit more floral, you know, so right away you could taste those two oils and you can know which is which.

Is one better than the other?

It's a matter of taste.

And then there are these little places where there's varieties that you never see outside of their area.

Uh, friend of mine in Ombria has Canino, I've never tasted 100 percent Canino, but that's an olive variety that he has as part of his field blend.

And then there's people who are on hillsides where they will taste different than if they're at sea level.

It's, I tasted this in Crete.

I tasted, I did a vertical tasting, same harvester, same miller.

In Crete and they, they laid out four glasses for me and I tasted all of them And I I ranked them and I said this one has the most complexity and the most harmony

This is this one is the most pleasing to me and the old gentleman who didn't speak english came into the room And his daughter translated and he looked so happy.

He says This one, 200 meters on a cliff, wild herbs growing under it, ancient trees, this is my favorite place, this is my favorite oil.

So I think terroir is part of it.

Yeah.

I knew this going into our conversation today, but I think it's really been confirmed for me.

The parallels between wine and grapes and olive oil and olives.

There are a lot of parallels just in expressions of place and where they're grown.

And then my assumption, please confirm or deny, is that when we talk about Escalado having notes of peach or tropical, what's causing that is the chemistry and just the natural compounds that are in there.

That are mirroring those compounds from peaches and tropical and flowers.

Like the same reason why I teach people that your Cabernet Sauvignon has hints of blackberry when we know there's no blackberry in there.

It's just the chemistry and the way that your esters and your ketones and all of those wonderful fun application of organic chemistry are expressing themselves and mirroring things that we recognize on the nose and in the mouth from flowers and fruit and spices.

Is that fair to say?

Okay.

I would say so.

And you know, perfumers get it.

They are creating these experiences by looking at constituents and building on something.

And what we have is nature giving us aspects and I can taste 20 Ascalanos, uh, from California and the rest of the world.

And they all taste different.

The biggest harvest of Ascalano we had here.

Was, uh, 6, 500 liters and we stored them in one liter totes, or in Italy, you'd call them chisternette, right?

You're Italian, it's so good.

I love it.

Ah, grazie.

And, uh, I had an office in Firenze for a while.

So these chisternette, each of them came from a different milling, right?

This was the hand harvest orchard.

It would take longer than the machine harvest because it was people on ladders.

Was to sit down with my blender and we tasted every one of the 65 lots and we said this is Lucero quality This is wholesale quality.

This is food service quality This is blending quality and in some cases we'd have something that was so pleasing in terms of aroma.

Oh my goodness This is an 11 in terms of aroma and then it would kind of disappear in the mouth or the finish You know, it was, it was like a later harvest and then we'd, we'd pick up something that was really pungent or bitter, but we, it was a little weak on the nose.

So our job was to go through just like a winemaker and start blending and eat what pleased us.

And so we would take lot 174 with lot, you know, 118 and in a certain percentages go this year, this is what the Ascolano is.

And, and I think to keep in mind that, you know, this isn't like pulling a lever and saying, okay, you're going to get the same flavors, the rain and the sun and so much that's going on is going to change even conditions at the mill.

And that's part of the joy too, you know, when you look at a gold medal or a best of show, it's not that one is better than the other, it's that somehow it's reached its best expression of itself.

Is Corotina better than Piqual?

Is Oscolato better than Arbequina?

I can't make that judgment.

How are you using it?

How are you enjoying it?

You know, if you love it, then that's, and, and, and you use it in a particular way, that's important.

Now, if I have to taste 20 of these, uh, same variety and make a judgment, then I start to look at how Is it within, well like a dog show, the breed standard, right?

Does it exhibit what we say is what an Escalada should have?

And then is it, is there, is there some complexity?

And is it harmonious?

Cause it could be, you know, out of the park aroma.

I love that word harmonious and you've, you've mentioned it a couple times today.

And I feel like, That's not a word that we use a lot in wine that we should.

I think we talk about wine being balanced and maybe they're kind of the same thing.

I think it's the same.

I think

that's the same.

Harmonious is the Yeah, I think it is.

Harmonious is a beautiful word and it's the name of a Disney firework show.

So maybe, you know, I just love that, harmonious.

Can I ask one or two more listener questions before we say goodbye?

So, this actually Disney group, uh, in Facebook that I'm a part of, which is called Ear for Each Other, actually commented and sent in a listener question.

So Ear for Each Other is a, a group of Disney cast members and Disney supporters.

It's a wonderful Facebook group that was born out of COVID to support all of the Disney cast members who were, you Furloughed or laid off and started side hustles and other jobs.

And so it's a place to connect.

People with supporters.

So I have an idea who the actual person behind this question could be.

It could be Rhonda, it could be Carrie, it could be Maxine.

Those are sort of the moderators and the creators of the group.

But anyway, the question was, tell us a little bit more about cold pressed and what does it actually mean in terms of flavor and quality and is it worth the cost?

Disney person.

That is such a good question.

You can't see my face, but I'm smiling right now at the camera because it's, in fact, related very much to, um, what Dominic and Morgan asked in terms of how you talk about olive oil and what words we use.

So first, coal pressed.

It comes from a pre World War II concept where olives were harvested, typically brought in with trucks or donkeys or on, you know, wheelbarrows to a stone mill

where it was ground and then placed in mats and a screw press was put to them and literally the weight of the press down and time, oil leaked out of the olive.

So first cold pressed was how they used to, in the olden days, make oil, like Roman times and pre war, because that's all they had.

And if you think about it, as long as the olives are on that stone mill with the other millstone running over it, it's being oxidized.

And then you stuff them into esparto mats or even synthetic mats, which how clean can those get?

There's always going to be some fermentation left over or rancidity or both, which transfers And then how long does it have to, to be pressed?

That is a surefire way of getting a virgin oil.

That's why it's solely mechanical means, no extraction with heat or anything else.

Oh, and then by the way, uh, what some people would do is take that paste that is spent and you got all the oil out of it, they take it and they'd apply hot water to it and press it again.

Or chemicals and press it again.

And they get a second pressing, which they could use for lamp oil or Lampante in Italian.

So you'd light lamps with it.

So you wouldn't want Lampante because, because it's not really for eating.

I don't want to eat lamp oil.

I don't want to light oil on my pizza.

No, but that's why they say first cold press.

Today, we crush the olives in a hammer mill.

We malax them for 20 minutes or so, which helps the oil and the water and the flesh to kind of start to separate a little bit.

And then it's put through a decanter, whether it's five ton or 10 ton or half ton, if you're a small producer, per hour.

And my centrifuge ran at 3000 RPM, and that separates the oil, the water, and the paste.

Olives are, if you're lucky, 16 or 18 percent oil.

You don't want moisture.

You don't want water in your oil, because it'll go ferment, it'll ferment, and you don't want sediment in your oil.

After it, it goes through that, uh, centrifuge at 3000 RPM, it flows into something called a polisher that goes at 6000 RPM that gets a little bit more.

Now I would say today, probably 80 or 90 percent of Californians then do something called racking, which is the same as in the wine industry and where you have these, it's the same thing.

They're in conical tanks and they siphon the stuff that you don't want off the bottom, which is going to ferment.

And then you take the oil off the top.

And so I've been in very interesting seminars about this.

When you measure the sensory aspect of these oils that have been filtered in this case and the phenolic content, there's a very slight difference.

And the argument always was, again, this is 10 years ago, 15 years ago, Oh, I don't want to filter my oil because I want all the polyphenols and I want all of the flavor.

What changed my mind and the reason why I air freighted a Spadoni filter from Umbria For our production.

That sounds cheap.

It was so worth it.

I was at a seminar.

And a miller that I admire very much had us taste an oil, and it was delicious.

It was milled like 20 minutes from here, and this was a class in Berkeley that he was giving.

We tasted the oil, and then he says, okay, now taste this oil.

If any of you wear glasses and you know what it's like when you look at a tree, you know And then you put your glasses on and then, Oh, look, there are leaves, right?

That's what happened.

He says, This is the same oil.

I just filtered it.

The light bulb went off because all of the clarity, all of the true expression of the olive came through.

So yeah, first cold pressed.

I'm glad you asked because it doesn't really exist anymore unless you still use donkeys.

There's the short answer.

And people still use it because people expect it.

So every time I see it on a label, I cringe.

Marketing.

People are bowing down to it.

It's an old fashioned term and it's used for

marketing purposes.

Is that a fair statement?

It's

because,

it's because it's familiar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It makes

people comfortable.

But yeah, not valid anymore.

Not, not equal or synonymous with quality.

All right.

So final question.

And again, we've talked around this, but let's bring it home for Karen.

Said, what should a consumer look for when wanting a superior oil for salads and dipping on the store shelf and at the supermarket?

Let's bring it home there.

Well, I would say one aspect would be, is the place you shop someplace that has a high turnover?

If there's some place where you know that people are buying a lot of oil, I was in a high end specialty store in Berkeley.

There must be 60 olive oils on the shelf and everything from knee level to, you know, just above my head.

And you stand there and you watch somebody shop And there's the same stuff in the middle of the aisle at shoulder height Just where you could reach that's getting

shopped and nothing else is moving Um in past years, I have found friends oils on those shelves that are four years old You know things that had long expired.

I stopped selling in wholesale Because I would get calls from friends who would find my oil that was expired.

And that's the impression that somebody who'd never tasted my brand before, they, they would have tasted a rancid oil and that's horrifying to me.

So when you go out there, if you trust the grocer and they are turning that stock, that's one thing.

I think the other thing.

Is that if it's a producer versus a bottler, right?

If somebody is just bottling, it is just a brand name.

It's hard to know the provenance.

Organic isn't necessarily a guarantee of quality and neither is saying that they have a gold medal.

If it's a California oil, if they're a member of the California olive oil council or the olive oil commission of California, the commission is a state regulated body disclosure here.

I was a board member.

and a charter member by law because of the volumes that we did.

And now I'm a voluntary member because my volumes are much smaller.

But if you produce more than 5, 000 gallons a year, you have to be regulated by the state of California.

So if you see somebody that is an OOCC certified oil, You know, it's going to be extra virgin because that would be on the bottle or on

the label.

If it is, it should be or on their website.

Okay.

Let's give them your website and tell them where they need to go to get these two beautiful oils that we have been tasting.

Well, thank you.

We have the Lucero olive oil brand, which we sell in our shop called American Olive Farmer.

And you can find us on the web at AmericanOliveFarmer.

com.

The oils that we tasted today are currently available and we also have a subscribe and save program, which may be of interest if you're a heavy user.

So Nikki, I want to take a moment and just thank you for organizing our time together today.

I enjoyed tasting and talking and sharing with you and I want to thank your listeners for sending such great questions.

I know there's a lot more we can say, and I look forward to, if, if time allows, coming back and being part of your, your podcast universe in the future.

Oh, that's definitely happening.

No question.

And I will put your website, AmericanOliveFarmer.

com in the show notes.

And thank you for creating a special podcast.

discount code for our listeners, which is Nikki$ 10 and that's giving 10 off their order and that's good through May and also the month of June.

Is that right?

That is right.

I, I would welcome any of you and you know, it's a small operation right now.

It's just me and Donald, my husband, who the pizza maker here.

And if I can answer any of your questions in Person, I'm happy to take your phone call or email or text message, but certainly do call because, uh, chatting is fun and we can find out what's best for you.

And Liz likes to chat, you guys.

She's not afraid of a healthy chat,

but what In matters of, in matters of taste, there's no dispute.

In matters of taste, there's

no dispute.

This is, I, I gotta write this down.

In matters of taste, there's no dispute.

It's amazing.

Um, how about your social media?

Where can people follow you and connect and kind of follow your journey on, on social media?

Lucero at Lucero Olive Oil is the official for the company on both Facebook and Instagram.

And personally, I'm a merchant adventurer.

or Liz Tagami.

And, you know, I spend more time in the real world than the virtual one these days, but maybe I'll get back to it.

Yeah.

And I answer, I answer when people leave notes.

I think sometimes even if you're not super active on there, I think sometimes it's a nice way for people to reach out if they do have a question.

Some people that's just their, their comfort platform.

So thank you for sharing that.

I will answer you.

Final thoughts.

Anything that we haven't covered that we must cover before we say goodbye today?

There's so much more about what we know about ourselves and our land.

And whether it is wine grapes or olive trees, I look forward to exploring that together.

Food and cooking has been part of my life since the late seventies.

I've grown up with the gourmet industry in California.

Both, uh, from a small time operator to the big national retailers.

I had 11 years at Williams Sonoma and when I see young people today with a level of sophistication you couldn't imagine 40 years ago, my heart is warmed.

And whatever we can do to help each other find that vibe, you know, that, that the food and wine that we love and how to get it, then I'm there.

So thank you for having me again.

Yeah, there's going to be more of this, but thank you.

Cheers, my friend.

Cheers.

Oh, my goodness.

Go buy the oil now.

Americanolivefarmer.

com.

Discount code Nikki$ 10.

Get the Arbequina, which is the one that she says is the best value.

Splurge on the Ascalano.

It's gorgeous.

And while you're splurging, buy the wine, Solovato Sangiovese, made by yours truly, and have both of these together, the olive oil and the wine, made from small, women owned businesses here in California.

And we promise you, Liz and I promise you, that your joy will be elevated if you do so.

Check out the links in the show notes to be able to find both her olive oil products and my wine.

And they're so great together.

I want to thank Liz for spending so much time and really breaking it down for all of you.

I've already heard great feedback from the first week's episode that you all learned so much.

And I hope that this conclusion just really put a bow on it, tied it up, and gave you all that you need to know to make better olive oil decisions.

As always, if you enjoyed this, please share it with someone that you think might enjoy it as well.

And take a moment in Apple or Spotify to leave us a rating or a review.

I would be so grateful.

That really helps us to just continue to be seen and gain more attraction.

And if you'd like to support the podcast, there is a link in the show notes to do that as well.

That'll make sure that I can keep creating and keep doing what I'm doing and it helps to cover the costs.

Thank you.

I really hope you enjoyed this as much as I did and, as always, sip well.

the the the the the the