How to recognize true quality extra virgin olive oil

Buyingquality extra virgin olive oil is not always a ‘smooth as silk’ process and requires some ‘sensory’ training to recognize its characteristics. The concept of ‘quality 100% Italian olive oil’ has made this irreplaceable condiment the symbol of the Mediterranean diet, which has always been associated with the concept of health and has fully entered our daily lives through a very long centuries-old tradition. But what are the issues related to its production?

The quality of Italian oil has been affected in recent years by modern markets, dominated by the speed of production and the need to make money mainly through time savings. This has made trade around this precious foodstuff problematic, with recurring episodes of fraud and little transparency for the final consumer. already starting with the very wording on the label of extra virgin oil.

In the welter of contemporary slogans, where “my goods are the best of all,” small and large producers in search of easy profits have placed low-quality products, very often passing them off as quality 100 percent extra virgin olive oil, making their oils “presentable” through some insane gimmicks of mystification and small touches that could confuse the less experienced customer.

The modern counterculture, on the other hand, orients on the side of the consumer and his or her brand loyalty, wants to inform and make people aware of what they are buying, focusing on absolute transparency and the real enhancement of its products. That is why there are foolproof methods with which to understand whether you are buying a quality extra virgin olive oil, visual experiments within everyone’s reach that can support a healthy encounter between the producing company and ordinary people, to grow and improve the quality of our existence.

But what are the sensory requirements that the best Italian olive oil must have in order to be completely genuine and complete with its excellent nutritional profile? Let’s look at some basic criteria starting with the substantial difference between extra virgin and virgin oils.

Quality extra virgin and virgin olive oil

The best EVO oil enjoys the privilege of being obtained exclusively through the harvesting of the fruit at the right time, going from the first pressing of the olives to rapid bottling, to preserve it from the nefarious oxidative processes and to maintain an acidity level (i.e., the presence of oleic acid) of less than 0.8 grams/100 grams. Virgin olive oil is composed of olives that are in good condition but have lost some of their rich organoleptic properties, due to alterations that of the product at the time of harvest until the processing, and can touch , by law, up to 2 grams/100 gr.

Characteristics of quality extra virgin olive oil

What makesextra virgin olive oil good is the careful processing based on a natural and sustainable production cycle, as detailed well in this section on the company’s production cycle. The final product must have fundamental characteristics to be called the top of its category, with specific values and visual qualities that respect its nutritional profile and an excellent phenolic profile. In fact, the level of acidity, that is, the percentage of oleic acid in the bottle, is difficult to assess at the household level, as it can only be measured by specific laboratory analysis. Let us then rely on other simple procedures for our informed purchasing:

• Detailed information on the label, such as indications of the origin of the olives, their designation, the location of the pressing and bottling companies, the words PDO and PGI, along with the words “cold pressing”
• The taste of extra virgin quality oil is bitter and spicy, leaving the typical tingling of polyphenols in the palate
• The intense fragrance of the oil should take you back to a field of blossoming olive groves and give all the freshness of the freshly harvested olive
• Pricing a product too low (below six euros) cannot possibly guarantee quality, because of the intensive process behind
• Low to medium fluidity is another good indicator, in spite of oil that is too liquid.