Guided tour of the Museum of Olive Culture Oil Tasting

About this tour

Spend two hours in Jaén exploring olive heritage through a museum tour and professional-style oil tasting. Walk through heritage gardens showcasing 30+ olive varieties, examine nineteenth-century pressing equipment, and step into the 'Cathedral of Oil'—a cultural landmark housing the mill's original winery. Finish by learning to taste like a professional, identifying flavours and qualities across different oils with guidance from a specialist.

Highlights

• Thirty-plus olive varieties in the heritage garden
• Nineteenth-century milling and pressing machinery on display
• The Cathedral of Oil, a 1992 Cultural Interest site
• Professional oil-tasting initiation with trained materials
• Learn organoleptic assessment techniques from experts

What to expect

Your guide will lead you through the museum's connected spaces, starting in the gardens where you'll see the range of olive types grown in the region. The machinery section shows how oil was made historically—these aren't replica pieces but original nineteenth-century equipment. The Cathedral of Oil, the restored winery, is the architectural highlight. After the tour, you'll move into the tasting workshop. Everyone gets proper glassware, tasting chips, pencils, apple and water to cleanse your palate between samples. The guide walks you through recognising acidity, fruitiness, bitterness and other characteristics professionals use. You're not expected to be an expert—the point is learning the vocabulary and methods.

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