It really doesn’t take a lot.
A little vision, a little innovative thinking, a little community inclusion, and suddenly a destination can look very different.
The long road back to establish Jelsa as the quality destination it once was and (I believe) will be again, took a healthy step forward last night, with the first Days of Hvar Olive Oil deemed a big success from several messages I received here in the Big Smoke of Zagreb.
The event, part of a new strategy of the new Jelsa Tourist Board director to have at least one event a week throughout the year was embraced by restaurants as well, with as many as six open for the night in this quiet winter period, which contrasted with just one in Hvar Town last week. The biggest party afterwards I understand was at Murvica, one of the organisers of the event.
A chance for locals to put their oil in for official judging, and it was great to hear that Jelsa’s favourite Dutchman, Henk Buijs, already an accomplished medal winner after learning the tricks of the trade from his olive mentor Branko Buncuga, was once more among the medals. Being so far away, I am grateful to Henk’s wife Ingrid for the following report:
I don’t have the list of winners of the medals. It was a very nice event. The initiator to start this local organization of olive oil producers for the island of Hvar is Đurđan Gordulić (from restaurant Murvica). He is also the president of the association. He organized the event very well.
I think it is a great initiative. This first time 45 people, including official producers, were sending their samples. 3 got a golden medal, 5 got silver, 13 got bronze, 16 got a diploma and 8 had only lampante. That means not extra virgin quality. The standard for this test was much higher then before in Split.
The winner got 99,4 points what was absolutely extreme! She is a doctor from Split and has here olive trees in Sucuraj. To get a medal you need 90 points for bronze, 93 for silver and 96 for gold.
A lady from the institute in Split that was responsible for testing gave a nice presentation.
Of course I am very proud on my husband who was for sure the smallest producer with only 5 trees. But that 5 trees gave 350 kilos of olives and 53 liters of oil. He had a great teacher in Branko Bunčuga who taught him everything about the olives, how to prune etc.
We are very grateful to our good friends who picked our olives this time. We were not able to do it ourselves because we were moving in the Netherlands.
