I live on our family owned and run olive grove in the Wairarapa, north of Wellington, New Zealand. We established the grove as a family in 1999 and began producing olive oil commercially in 2005.

Our strategy was to provide two oils each year with distinctly different flavours. In the early days this was done based on our own appreciation of what we believed our olive oil should taste like. In later years we employed an outside consultant to help with the blending but quickly decided that we would prefer to refine our own skills in blending.

I began attending short courses offered by Olives New Zealand and then decided to undertake the Savantes program to strengthen my knowledge of olive oil.