Food: Sonoma women have a taste for olive oil

Longtime Sonoma resident Deborah Rogers is known far and wide as an olive oil taster and tester, and she and lifetime Sonoma resident Nancy Lilly often travel to other countries to judge olive oils in prestigious comparison contests.

In fact, they just taste-tested and rated Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s house-label olive oils, and this past Wednesday did the same for mid-state producers in Paso Robles.

Rogers was founding managing partner of the Olive Press with Ed Stolman and became the first woman olive miller in California. Now a “Master Miller,” she eventually moved on to McEvoy Ranch where she still consults during each harvest on their agrúmato, or co-processed flavored oils. “I still love it!” she told the Index-Tribune.

Rogers and Lilly started in the 1990s as taste panel members for the California Olive Oil Council (COOC). Rogers also served on the U.C. Davis taste panel and a Sonoma County Research Taste Panel.

Lilly grew up on her family’s sizable cattle and hay ranch in the hills that reach almost to Sonoma Raceway, enjoying playing in nature surrounded by trees, wildflowers and little streams. Now she and husband Tony Lilly grow grapes and olives, both of which they planted in 1998 with 70 Tuscan varietals sourced from longtime Sonoma Valley residents Bob Cannard and Phil Coturri, leading eventually to about 250 trees.

They still work the olive orchard primarily by themselves, with the volunteer harvest help of friends from as far away as Portland Oregon, North Carolina and the Netherlands. Lilly is also a great cook, donates her talents locally, and is a taster on the U.C. Extension Research Panel and the U.C. Davis Taste Panel.

Having accompanied the Lillys to the 2014 Good Food Awards with their Tallgrass Ranch Extra Virgin Olive Oil (where they received their awards from Alice Waters and Ruth Reichl), this writer can attest to the fact that Nancy Lilly blends her own olive oils herself in a kitchen. You can find them at the Epicurean Connection, the Pasta Shop in Berkeley and Oakland, Bi-Rite Markets in San Francisco, Beyond the Olive in Pasadena and City Olive in Chicago.

The tasting panel at Whole Foods included Rogers, Lilly, Glenn Weddell, Alexandra Kicenik Devarenne and Sandy Sonnenfelt.

None of the Whole Foods olive oils rated five stars out of five, but here were the best to worst in descending order: Whole Foods Market Extra Virgin Olive Oil of Morocco, 365 California Unfiltered Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 365 Italian Unfiltered EVOO, Whole Foods EVOO of Seville (same of Portugal), Terra Delyssa Organic EVOO, 365 Organic Mediterranean EVOO (same of Italy, then Greece, then Mediterranean blend), followed by Spain EVOO.