an ode to johnny madge

It’s almost exactly seven years since we first set eyes on an abandoned olive farm in the heart of the Sabina countryside.

If you’ve ever visited us, you’ll have heard the story of how we stood on the balcony and immediately decided to buy the place and become olive farmers. It’s true, of course, but there were also some things that we had to learn before we ditched our safe(ish), sensible(ish) careers and became contadini.

The first thing to find out was, besides using it as a healthy alternative to lard, whether we actually LIKED olive oil enough to spend hours, days, weeks, months, YEARS of our lives dedicated to producing the stuff.

A mutual friend therefore introduced us to the wonderful Johnny Madge, international olive oil taster and judge, who back in those days, lived in Sabina, where he ran his fabulous olive oil tours. So one morning that September, we took the train out from Rome and met Johnny at the station, and were whisked off for a life changing deep dive into the world of olive oil.

You can read about that day, and the impact that it had on us by clicking here.

That day we spent in Johnny’s company was Day One of our Olive Oil Adventure, and last night we spent several hours on Zoom “with” Johnny chatting about Scott’s recent Sommelier training (more of which later) and 1,001 other olive oil topics.

Which brings me to the point of this post!

Johnny has now moved to Valencia, Spain, and if you EVER find yourself in Valencia, you ABSOLUTELY MUST visit him and take part in one of his fabulous tours. I can’t promise that it will make you do something as foolhardy as buying a farm of your own, but I also can’t promise that it won’t.

For further information and booking onto Johnny’s tours, CLICK HERE