What is a Premium Olive Oil?
Go into any upscale supermarket and you will find olive oil ranging in price from five euros per liter to fifty. Or more. Why is this? Of course, the same question could be asked of wine, ham, tomatoes, cheese, bread or vinegar and the answer will always be the same: The more expensive a product, the more time and passion was invested into its production. Or, at a minimum, a reputation was established at some point which allows for a premium price. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire; look for the reputation and, often as not, you will find the best product. Champagne champagne, Roquefort blue cheese, Parma prosciuto, Bavarian weizen beer, Modena vinegar or Tuscan olive oil.It comes down to time and passion. What restaurant could get a Michelin star without time and passion? As E.M. Forester said, “Connect the prose with the passion and both will be exalted.” So, more than any other criteria, if you want super-premium olive oil, find a producer who is passionate about their olives. This is the best hope of getting a mother’s love (because the oil is usually for their own family) and the Michelin-starred chef’s perfectionism. And like the chef who must inspect every plate that goes into the dining room, insure that wine glasses are not smudged and guarantee valets aren’t changing radio presets, so must the super-premium olive oil producer check every bushel, fight every potential contaminant, guard against temperature variations and blend his annual production to perfection. As with everything, the last 10% towards perfection can only be bought with a disproportionate investment in time.
Non-premium Olive Oil
Let’s take a look at ‘normal’ olive oil first. The olive trees are grown in massive irrigated orchards on lowland plains and then harvested by gigantic machines which clap around the trunk and shake the olives to the ground (at a time when they will most easily fall). Olive variety is based upon oil yield and olives brought for pressing may be rejected table olives. Milling is done in an industrial-scale centrifuge1 and the temperature is maximized to produce the most oil possible.2 even while staying within the acidity limits to meet the definition of ‘extra-virgin’. Oil may then be blended in from other cheaper oil suppliers such as Tunisia3 or Spain and maybe, with luck, some premium oil will be added for flavor (and/or to make some marketing claim that the bottle of oil the consumer will be buying is somehow from a premium oil district). In a worst case, oil may be added that isn’t olive oil at all. This will be your five euro bottle. And it’s not the worst thing that can happen to you because the Italians have rightly earned their dominance of the world olive oil market by becoming master blenders who create a consistent taste year in and out.Non-premium oil is a commodity produced to a price point and yet Italian, Spanish or Greek consumers can, with care, purchase oil at the supermarket which is quite good at a reasonable price (This, of course, would be considerably more difficult anywhere else in the world). Think of it as having the complexity of a 10 euro bottle of wine versus a five euro bottle. Premium oil, on the other hand, will be your 25 or more euro bottle.4 The irony is, once people are ready to spend more for their wine, a comparable bottle of olive oil costing the same and lasting at least five times as long seems like a remarkable value.
The Great Leap Forward
Just as the skill of the vintner is critical to the quality of his wine (when to pick the grapes, how they are processed, the hygienic conditions/corrupting scents, the type of wood used for flavoring, etc... ), weather and soil are equally important.5 When premium Californian wine producers are looking for property, they might study geological surveys to find heavy limestone content because the famous Grand Cru Petrus has such soil.6 But, like everything, it is the combination of elements, controllable and uncontrollable which must come together in the right measures to produce the premium product. And it is a fool who would deny that one of those elements is dumb luck.The controllable elements, however, are critically important. First of all, the location must be right. Highland olives suffer from problems their lowland brothers do not, namely freezing, less fertile soil and increased difficulty in harvesting. They payoff, however, by having a more intense olive flavor and a greatly reduced probability of olive fly contamination. Another factor to consider is that olives grown in the cooler highland can have up 30% greater oleic (mono-unsaturated) content than their cousins which ripen in a hotter environment. In short, the yield is less for higher labor costs, but the oil is better.
Olive Variety
There are hundreds of different varieties, but the bulk of the oil in central Italy is made from four classic types: Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo and Maurino. Frantoio and Moraiolo are considered to be more flavorful, however, are poor pollinators7 and mature later and more erratically than say the Leccino. The Maurino8 and Pendolino are excellent pollinators and should be planted every 30 m to guarantee a high level of fruit set. Mongiovino has a local olive variety known as the Lake Trasimeno Sweet which is considered partially responsible for the unique characteristics of the mountain’s oil and therein lies one secret of small oil producers: A consistent blend of varieties refined over millennia, whether by luck, evolution or a scientific approach (or, as is most probable, a combination of the three) have created local blends that offer taste characteristics that mass producers cannot match.Next comes processing. Speed, hygiene and pressing methods are the factors to consider. To produce the best possible oil, it is essential that the oil be removed from contact with the residual and putrescible pulp as soon as possible; otherwise the consequent formation of free fatty acids may induce rancidity. Assuming your olive are stored dry and undamaged, you would hope less than 48 hours passes before pressing.9
Before being ground into a paste, the olives must be cleaned and devegetated. Once ground, they should be pressed immediately, agitated as little as possible and kept away from any source of contaminants. In traditional mat presses, for example, it is difficult to keep the mats clear of contaminants especially if small growers are bringing in their odd lots of possibly olive fly-infested or week-old olives. This problem is reduced in industrial centrifuges (or with stainless steel or synthetic mat meshes) but, simply put, while good olives can be made into bad oil, but bad olives can never become good oil.
The oil/water ratios (based upon maturity of the fruit) also have a curious bearing on quality. The amount of oil remains constant at a certain point, but the water percentage will decrease during the harvest season, thus, because you pay for processing according to weight, often growers will delay bringing their olives to the mill. That is one advantage of an estate oil which has its own press; olive weight is irrelevant and they can decide based upon other factors when to pick and press.
Olive oil naturally has sediments suspended after it has been pressed and it takes a period of time before these have dropped, for the most part, to the bottom. Fresh oil, sediments and all (a major source of the polyphenols), may be consumed with the greatest gusto; however, if the oil is allowed to rest on a bed of sediments for too long, it will become rancid and/or musty. Thus, fresh oil is usually allowed to settle for at least one month before being bottled. Mass producers of oil will filter these sediments out immediately providing a clear oil that will guarantee a longer shelf-life (and guarantee lack of flavor).10
What Can I do?
The four greatest enemies of olive oil are age, heat, light and air. As such, you want new oil stored in a cool place out of the light in dark bottles and sealed off from the oxidizing effects of the atmosphere.11 The good news is that, new extra-virgin, once experience, is quite easy to identify, just like the difference between dried herbs and fresh. Of course, like and dislike is extremely subjective and an oil may not suit you although it is a perfectly fine product,12 but, to dismiss an oil, it must have, at a minimum, one of the four primary defects13 and/or a complete, and I do mean complete lack of harmonic balance.14 And let me emphasize once again, this is not difficult to identify for someone with a normal sense of smell and taste.You can make olive oil as simple or complicated as you like and no one has the monopoly on olive oil truth. I will warn you, however, that once you experience the difference, it is difficult to go back.