Olivegrower profile – 2021 AIOA Best of Show
The Olive Twist grove is in an ideal location, on well-draining sloping land and with plenty of wind keeping pests and diseases at bay.
AIOA Best of Show as good as a holiday! Settling into life with a six-week old baby sounds like a great time to buy a holiday house - but when that house includes 550 olive trees, we all know there won’t be much of a holiday involved. That’s just what Olive Twist owners Julianne and George Bakogiannis did, however, setting themselves on the path to producing this year’s Australian International Olive Awards Best Flavoured Oil of Show. The Victorian producers were one of the 2021 competition’s highest scoring entrants, with the Olive Twist Lime Agrumato awarded a soaring 95 points by the judges. Earning a high Gold medal, the Lime Agrumato then went on to take the trophies for Champion Agrumato Olive Oil and Best Flavoured Olive Oil of Show. Olive Twist’s Lemon Agrumato also earned a Silver medal in this year’s AIOA, cementing a reputation founded on Gold and Silver medal wins in a number of previous competitions.
“Mostly we learned from local olive growers - that was a life-safer.” Confirmation and confidence
Julianne and George said the win has given them confidence in their products and methodologies. “It makes us very proud,” they said. “It’s confirmation that you’re doing the right thing: for any job you do, it’s nice to get that pat on the back, to know we’re on the right track and our oils are good quality. “And especially as we came into this with blinkers on. It shows that we now really know what we’re doing.”
20 • Australian & New Zealand Olivegrower & Processor • December 2021 • Issue 122
Background
The Bakogiannises bought their property in 2010, when George said he wanted to buy a holiday house. Nestled in the South Gippsland hills near Jumbunna, Julianne said it wasn’t what they were originally looking for. “It was over our budget, and a lot bigger than we were looking at, but we just fell in love with it,” she said. “We knew immediately it wasn’t a holiday house, it was a sea change. “There were 550 olive trees, which were about eight years old when we bought it, so we got into olives purely by chance. But George grew up on a vineyard, and his Mum had olive trees, so he knew what hard work it was and had that background of looking after things. It was a bit of going back to his roots really.” While those roots were there, taking on the grove was a big learning curve for an accountant (George) and a disability carer (Julianne). “We went to a lot of expos for the first couple of years, including one in Italy, and George has done the courses with the AOA as well. We learned a lot from those,” Julianne said. “But mostly we learned from local olive growers - that was a lifesafer. “We were always going over to their groves and seeing what they were doing; bouncing questions off them. We found everyone really helpful, whereas other industries they’d tell you to piss off. We were just so lucky that olive people are so generous, and so passionate about what they do. “We returned the favour with another guy who came up to us at the market, and he won his first Gold medal at the AIOA this year!”
