P.S. The site for the Huileries de Serignan store does now show that their olive oil is exported to the U.S., although the oil does go to French Polynesia, among other countries.

Great. We'll be in Nice in May.
Also, any recs for evoo from Sicily?
M

One excellent Sicilian oil is Regaleali produced on the wine estate of the same name, which I believe you can visit to tour and taste.

Another Sicilian oil that gets very good reviews is Ravida.

bookmarking.
Muchas gracias.
M (SMdA, Gto.)

Jean, Patricia Wells lives in Vaison La Romaine. Her home and wine are called Chanteduc and she usually buys the same olive oil as I do the Jean Corneille Coop in Maussane.

For anyone who lives in New York, Fairway market has excellent prices for very fresh A.O.C. olive oils from Provence including those from Nyons and Maussane les Alpilles. They also stock a few Sicilian oils as well as Tuscan, Umbrian, etc etc oils that they buy in bulk and have bottled with the store label.

Pardon, Mimi--Patricia Wells SHOPS at the Nyons market.

Oh dear...cold fingers. I meant that the Huileries de Serignan does NOT export oil to the U.S.

When I was in Williams Sonoma today I checked and the Alizari Olive Oil is $39.00 for 36 ounces. The blue and yellow tin is round rather than rectangle shaped like the one I bought in Nice.

Very pricey, but that's W/S.

We have the great fortune to have visited the olive mill, Coopérative oléicole de la Vallée des Baux, mentioned in "A Year in Provence". We hauled back armfuls of olive oil and soap. Just as our supply dwindled and we were rationing the remaining drops of our last bottle, my daughter spotted its golden label in our favorite neighborhood artisan cheese shop, 5 minutes from my house (Del Mar, CA)! Voila! Some things in life are just meant to be!

carcasonne, that's the one but hear one bottl costs what we get for three at the moulin.

My cheese shop sells the 0,50L bottles for $28 which is not bad at all considering I paid 9 euros for the 0,25L bottles. I prefer the smaller bottles just to keep the oil fresh. Quoting the book, "It was like eating sunshine." The owner said there is only one distributor, located in Denver. My X'mas care package this year is a copy of the book and the olive oil.

I love my artisan cheese shop. Besides an amazing assortment of cheese, it has wine, olive oil, tapanade, vinegar, wine jelly, french butter, etc. It's a foodie's heaven and my little slice of Europe. www.aniata.com

EK, CIGA, ET.AL.--- I realized that AL'Olivier sells different olive oils from all over the Mediterranean. After all, I was the one who provided the website (HELLO!!?). That's why my message specifies the brand and the ONE PLACE you need to get it from specifically: NICE. The one I found travels the best is the 83 fld.oz. tin can labeled AL'Olivier Huile D'Olive Vierge Extra OLIVE DE NICE.

For the record, as good and convenient Al'Olivier makes it to buy good olive oil from the Mediterranean, nothing beats a great find at a farmer's market. I found a gem at a farmer's market in Aix-En-Provence: Chateau Virant Huile D'Olive. Exquisite.

You know I think that my predjudice against A L"Olivier stems from, besides the issue of its being a chain, the not-stellar comments about them in Patricia Wells' Food Lover's guide. Wells says that, although the quality of their oils is not extraordinary, the shop is a good source for nicely packaged gifts. Having read that book long ago, I never actually bought any of their oils, although I have used their soaps and purchased gifts there...

In Paris, my favorite oil source is Huilerie LeBlanc in the 6eme on Rue Jacob...not that anyone asked!!

That's so funny because my French teacher has a joke about finding Patricia Wells's picture on a French-English dictionary...next to the word cliché. She also mentioned her books has an undertone of cozy relationship reviewer/owner (definitely not a fan!).

On this topic I can only speak by personal experience. Sorry.

My own thought is that the freshness of the oil is a major factor...just searching for a name label may lead to disappointment if the oil by X on the shelf is a year old. This is an issue here in the US when someone searches for a big-name oil and forgets to look at the date which hopefully is marked on the label. I think this is a faactor that sometimes is overlooked.

bkmking

I've kept olive oil just fine for several years.

While in Nice, try Oliviera; 8 bis Rue du Collet in Vieux Nice. They have an olive oil called Tanche Dessert. At the cookery lesson I had with Rosa Jackson in Nice (les Petits Farcis cookery school), we used it to make a lemon tart. Lots of other delicious oils too, and a small place to have lunch. www.oliviera.com.