Tasting Olive Oil.

Story by Manos Angelakis

Tasting Olive Oil

The extensive promotion of the Mediterranean Diet and the health benefits of that lifestyle has brought to the forefront olive oil as a product essential to a healthy living.

There are hundreds of olive oil brands now available in the marketplace, most imported from countries bordering the Mediterranean. Additionally, a number of North American (California) and South American producers have entered the market with olive oil from those parts of the world.

As we indulge in Mediterranean meals, the question is: How do we know which oils are good and easy to digest?

There are many indicators of high quality oil, but the easiest to use and most apparent is color. The best olive oil is cold pressed, extra virgin, from still green fruit. The color of the oil should be a medium green or greenish-golden, clear not cloudy and with a light viscosity. Dark yellow or light brown oil is an indication that the pressing was done from very ripe olives which makes the oil heaver and not easily digestible, or that the fruit has been steamed during pressing to extract as much oil as possible – which also makes the product heavy. Very light green or lightly cloudy oil might indicate mixing of the olive oil with other vegetable or nut oils.

In general, light colored oils are used mostly for salads and cold dishes, and darker oils are used for cooking or frying, though I personally use salad oils for everything.

We called together a few members of the “gang of the usual suspects” to taste a number of olive oils. There were many submissions from producers and importers mostly from Italy and Greece, and the tasters used a modified Davis rating system of 20 points to judge the oils, the same method used to rate wines. We used as samples both uncooked oil and the same oil cooked by sautéing vegetables – onion, celery, carrot - in it.

Most tasters preferred the lighter salad oils both cooked and uncooked over the heavier uncooked oils – no surprise there. But some of the regional product differences were interesting. We had received samples from different areas of Crete – Sitia on the eastern end of the island, Iraklion in the center, and Chania on the western end. The sample from Sitia was deemed preferable to the sample from Chania, but the tasters also liked one of the samples from Iraklion. The tasters liked the sample from Italy’s Le Marche over samples from Sardinia, Calabria and Umbria. Surprisingly a blend from California created by Anna Zoitas proved to be favored, and it had as good a rating as the Cretan oils – but that might have been due to the inclusion of the Koroneiki variety as part of the three-oil blend.

The best-liked products were:

18 points - Minerva, Cold-Pressed, Extra Virgin Olive Oil – from Greece.
17 1/2 points - Sitia Lasithi, Cold-Pressed, Extra Virgin Olive Oil – from Eastern Crete.
17 1/2 points - The Artisanal Kitchen, Three Olives, Extra Virgin Olive Oil – from California.
17 points - Knossos, Cold-Pressed, Extra Virgin Olive Oil – from Iraklio, Central Crete.
16 1/2 points - Francesco Bellini Riserva, Extra Virgin Olive Oil – from Italy.
16 1/2 points – Poggio al Tesoro Extra Virgin Olive Oil blend of Frantoio, Leccino and Moraiolo– from Bolgheri, Toscana, Italy
16 points - Calabria Dorata, Extra Virgin Olive Oil – from Italy.
16 points - Νησος (Island), Cold-pressed, Virgin Olive Oil – from Peza, Central Crete.
16 points - Baena, PDO, organic farming, Spain, a lemony, earthy oil with a slight bitter bite on the palate.

I was surprised at the lack of submissions from Spain. There was only two samples sent and one was a heavy cooking oil. Not surprising, it did not garner a high rating.

All these oils can be found in specialty ethnic stores and many supermarkets. The Three Olives oil can be purchased at www.theartisanalkitchen.com

Issue:
January
2012