Food professionals from around the world will gather June 21-23 at UC Davis for “Beyond Extra Virgin,” an international conference exploring the best production practices, sensory qualities and culinary possibilities for the highest quality extra virgin olive oil.

The event, the largest conference on olive-oil excellence ever held in North America, is designed for chefs, journalists, specialty retailers, food-service management executives, olive-oil producers, sensory scientists and other professionals. Co-sponsored by the UC Davis Olive Center and The Culinary Institute of America, it will include two days at UC Davis and a third day at the institute’s Greystone campus in the Napa Valley.

The term “extra virgin” applies to olive oil that is the natural product of the olive, processed without any heat, solvents or other oils.

“Extra virgin olive oil is one of the world’s most revered foods, but it has been so broadly defined that it includes a great deal of mediocre oil,” said Dan Flynn, executive director of the UC Davis Olive Center. “By bringing together Old World authorities from the Mediterranean region with other olive oil experts from other parts of the world, we hope to explore the technical and flavor elements that are key to excellence in extra virgin olive oil.”

During the three-day conference, participants will be shown how to identify the defects commonly found in oils marketed as extra virgin and to understand the critical control points — from harvest to storage — that advance or undermine flavors in extra virgin olive oil. They also will experience how leading chefs are melding the modern with the ancient to highlight and even re-invent the best of these flavors.

The conference will begin at 4 p.m., Sunday, June 21, with all sessions held in Freeborn Hall. On Tuesday, June 23, the participants will travel by bus to The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.

A complete agenda and registration forms for the conference are provided online by the UC Davis Olive Center at http://www.olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/news-events/events/beyond-extra-virgin-2009. Registration fee is $495 per person.

This is the third Beyond Extra Virgin conference; the first was held in 2007 at UC Davis and the second was held last year in Florence, Italy. This year’s conference will feature the cuisines of Old World nations such as Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, as well as the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and Argentina.

Helping to coordinate the conference are Associazione TREE, a nonprofit organization devoted to the improvement of olive oil; Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence, Italy; and the California Institute for Food and Agricultural Research at UC Davis.

The UC Davis Olive Center is one of four research and outreach centers in the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.