Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Italian extra virgin olive oil (EVO oil) is one of the most appreciated products in the world by lovers of good food and a healthy lifestyle. However, even those who regularly consume Italian olive oil often have a limited knowledge and a lot of confusion about this extraordinary product.

In reality, all it takes is some basic knowledge about extra virgin olive oil to be able to choose quality products at the right price.
In this guide to appreciation and purchase we will explain everything you need to know in order to choose, taste and use extra virgin olive oil.

Why is extra virgin olive oil so good and healthy?

Reduces cholesterol

Extra virgin olive oil is among the richest foods in monounsaturated fatty acids, which are good for your health. Regular consumption of extra virgin olive oil lowers the levels of LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) in the blood and maintains unchanged those of HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol), thus reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke.

Rich in antioxidants

Extra virgin olive oil is rich in antioxidants: vitamin E, tocopherol and many polyphenols. They are all compounds that defend cells from premature aging caused by free radicals.

Natural detoxifier

EVO oil reduces the secretion of gastric acids and therefore the danger of stomach ulcers. It also has positive effects on the liver and thanks to its balanced composition of fats has a high detoxifying power.

It is tasty

Extra virgin olive oil is not only healthy but also delicious. Used raw for seasoning or cooking, its fragrant and aromatic flavor enhances the taste of ingredients and gives a special touch to all dishes.
Thanks to its high smoke point and resistance to high temperatures, it is also perfect for frying without developing harmful substances.

So what exactly is extra virgin olive oil?

From olives it is possible to obtaine various types of oil (olive oil, virgin oil, lampante oil, etc). The extra virgin oil has the highest level of quality, the only one with all those unique properties that make it beneficial, healthy and tasty.
By law, in order to be classified as extra virgin an olive oil must have these 3 following requirements:

1. Mechanical extraction - Cold Pressing

The extraction of oil must be done exclusively with mechanical procedures, without the use of solvents or other chemical additives.
In various production stages the temperature must never exceed 27°C (80°F). Only in this way all its beneficial properties and taste remain unaltered.

2. Acidity

The concentration of free fatty acids is among the most important parameters for the evaluation of oil quality. The acidity of extra virgin oil must not exceed 0.8%.

3. Sensory Evaluation

When smelling and tasting it, an extra virgin olive oil must be free from defects. In order to be classified as extra virgin, a team of professional and certified tasters assess an olive approving or rejecting it according to whether it meets certain minimum requirements.
The defining characteristics are the fruity aroma, the bitter taste and a particular spicy sensation that can be felt at the bottom of the palate, especially when the EVO oil is very fresh.

Production

What is the key to the quality and taste of an extra virgin olive oil?
Time is crucial for the quality of olive oil.

Harvest

To obtain an oil with low acidity and high content of antioxidants olives should be harvested when they have begun to ripen or are not too ripe.

Harvest methods

Hard and invasive harvesting systems can damage the olives before they arrive at the mill and cause defects in the final product.

Processing timing

If too much time passes between the harvesting of the olives and their milling, the acidity increases and fermentation processes can occur, developing molds and rot which will release unpleasant aromas and harmful substances into the oil produced.

As fast as possible

To ensure high quality, olives must be processed within a maximum of 24-48 hours after harvesting. This is possible if the olive groves are close to the processing mill and if small batches of olives are processed at a time. Large industrial mills process huge quantities of olives coming from very distant growing areas, sometimes even from abroad. This increases the time between harvesting and processing and the end result is low quality olive oil.

Want to know more?

Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Italy is the most important country for the production of high quality extra virgin olive oil.

Why is Italian olive oil so good?

The olive tree is native to the Middle East and thanks to the Greeks and Romans spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. It is in Italy, however, that the olive tree found the ideal environment to give its best.
The olive tree and the production of oil can be found in all twenty regions of Italy, from north to south.
In Italy the olive tree has been cultivated for so long and in so many different areas that over the centuries farmers have selected the varieties that best suited to the various climatic and geological conditions and that provided the best quality product.
There are more than 500 varieties of olives cultivated in Italy, 40% of all the varieties in the world.
Extra virgin olive oil is an indispensable and one of the most representative ingredient of the Italian cuisine, ever-present on the table together with bread and wine.

Frantoio (olive mill)

The production of extra virgin olive oil in Italy is diffusely distributed in the territory. There are thousands of small mills scattered throughout the territory that process small quantities of olives from the olive groves owned by the mill itself or on behalf of small producers, often amateurs, who have small plots of land for their private production of olive oil.

This guarantees the highest quality for the following reasons:

1. Olives are harvested shortly before being processed and at the right degree of ripeness.
2. Olive trees are often located in small plots in the hills and harvest is done wiht manual or non-invasive methods that do not damage the olives.
3. Small batches of olives are harvested and can be pressed immediately after arrival at the mill.

In other countries

In the other countries that produce olive oil the olive varietals are very few, often selected not for quality but for productivity.
In Spain, which is world largest producer of olive oil, is cultivated almost exclusively the Picual variety, selected for the high yield of oil, which however is characterized by a not very pleasant aroma reminiscent of cat's pee. In order to increase the yield even more, to the detriment of quality, olives are harvested when they are completely ripe or even overripe.
Also cultivation is industrial, with huge plantations where harvesting is done by mechanical means which often damage olives.
Spanish production is mainly concentrated in the area of Andalucia, and at the peak of harvesting season the quantity of olives arriving at oil mills are such that it is not possible to process them in a short time and crates full of olives can wait for days in the yards of oil mills in the sun and in the heat.

Deodorization

Oils produced with these methods often have severe defects and could never be classified as extra virgin.
However there are systems to eliminate or attenuate the flaws of an oil. They are complex treatments made with chemical and heat procedures. An oil treated in this way could not be classified as extra virgin. However the most modern techniques do not leave traces in the final product and it is almost impossible to detect the treatment directly.
A poor oil treated in order to attenuate defects does not have the typical intense and fragrant taste and it is devoid of most its antioxidant properties.
Even its preservation will be short and after a while it will begin to have hints of oxidation and rancidity.

All Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil are the same?

Unfortunately the minimum requirements to classify an oil as extra virgin are not able to guarantee the same quality standard to all products and leave much margin for the presence on the market of oils not always up to expectations, especially among the industrial products found on supermarket shelves.
Italians consume so much extra virgin olive oil that national production satisfies less than half of domestic demand, without taking exports into account.
This means that Italy must import an immense quantity of oil from other countries: Spain, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey. These imported oils are not sold directly but are mixed with other oils to create blends.

Olive oil blending

Before being released on the market, it is possible to mix oils of higher acidity with others of lower acidity, so as to obtain a final average acidity lower than 0.8 which is the limit for the classification as extra virgin oil.
Sometimes extra virgin olive oils are mixed with deodorized oils until they reach the minimum levels to pass the taste-olfactory assesment.

Big brands

With these systems many big olive oil brands are able to obtain large volumes of production at very low prices.
In recent decades, many large well-known Italian brands have been purchased by multinational groups that exploit the image of high quality, tradition and typicality of Italian oil to sell Spanish and Tunisian oils produced industrially and with a low quality level.
Over the years, some journalistic inquiries and real frauds discovered by the authorities have led to shout the scam of Italian extra virgin olive oil.
In reality, unless there are real and proper frauds in commerce, illegal and to be prosecuted, it is not difficult to understand if the oil you are buying is truly of high quality. Most of the time it is enough to know how to read the label and follow some basic rules.

Read the label

Even if written in small characters, the label on a bottle of oil has all the information we need.

Olive oil origin

The label must show the origin of the olives or, if the olive oil is a blend, where the oils that have been used to produce a blend come from.

Blend of olive oils of EU origin

It means that it is a blend of oils coming mainly from Spain and maybe Greece and probably there is not even a drop of Italian oil.

Blend of olive oils of Italian and EU origin

It means it is a blend in variable parts of Italian oil and oil from other European countries, most likely Spain.

Blend of olive oils of EU and non-EU Union origin

It means that it is a blend of Spanish and Greek oils mixed with Tunisian and Turkish oils.

100% Italian EVO Olive Oil

If you want to be sure that the oil you use is really Italian, you must choose bottles whose label says "Produced with 100% Italian olives". This alone is not an absolute guarantee of quality but at least it certifies the origin of the product.

Best Before

A certain confusion in labeling is given by the expiry date.
By law the expiry date should be two years from the moment of bottling, not of production. An oil mill can keep in its deposits olive oils for years, mix them with other fresher olive oils in order to obtain the minimum taste requirements for certification as extra virgin and the expiry date will be anyway two years from the moment of bottling.

Production Date

For this reason it is preferable to choose olive oils that indicate on the label, in addition to the expiry date, also the date of production, that is the date of picking of the olives. This information is not mandatory, but if it is stated must be correct. The wording is usually something like " Olive harvest 2021/2022" and indicates when the olives were picked. As freshness is fundamental for the quality and health benefits of olive oil this information is very important.

Price

In recent years, especially in Italian supermarkets, you can find bottles of extra virgin olive oil at very low prices. It can be as low as 3-4 euros per liter. Producing quality extra virgin olive oil has a high cost. In order to sell the oil at such low prices the only way is to use industrial oils imported from abroad, blended and treated to fall within the parameters of extra virgin.
Although a high price is not necessarily an indication of quality, a price too low is almost always an indication of a poor oil.

DOP - Denomination Mark

Trust your taste

In choosing an extra virgin olive oil it is important to rely on your taste and smell. With a little bit of practice and experience you can get used to understand the faults and qualities of an extra virgin olive oil by trusting your senses when making a purchase. Of course it is important to train the nose with genuine and high quality products.

Purchase from the frantoio (mill)

One of the best ways to buy high quality extra virgin olive oil at the right price is to go to small oil mills scattered throughout the territory. The only way is to buy directly from them because they have very small productions that cannot reach the supermarkets of the big distribution but at the most in small gourmet stores specialized in specialty products.
In the small mills you can find an oil made from small batches, where the olives are harvested with non-invasive methods that respect the fruit and are pressed after few hours with traditional methods.
Small frantoios do not buy other oils to make blends and almost always sell all the oil they have available long before the new harvest so there is the certainty that their extra virgin olive oil is fresh.
Small oil mills do not have the economic and political power of big industrial groups which are often able to influence and pressure tasting panels. If the oil of a small producer is classified as extra virgin you can be sure it is really free from defects.