Olive oil preferences
 

Which area's olive oils do you like best? My favorites are good Sicilian olive oils. They have a strong olive flavor, but it is a fruity, rich olive flavor, rather than a sharp, peppery flavor like the Tuscan. They are pretty heavy, not light and refined like the French. I generally get a cheaper, not bad, extra virgin olive oil from the supermarket for general use (sometimes from Greece, sometimes from origins unknown), and a good Sicilian extra virgin olive oil for times when I want really good oil. I have oil on my mind because I just got a different oil today. I got it because it's from the new crop pressed this past fall, and that's not usually available. It's the greenest oil I've ever seen. It's very good, but not better than my usual very good Sicilian oil--just different.

Along about March Costco will have their (Kirkland) Tuscan olive oil available. It is excellent. Their regular oil is quite good. Being very green has little to do with quality.

Oh, but the green is so pretty. :) I think it has to do with the variety of olive and the stage of ripeness. This oil is from an early pressing, I think in October, it is probably so green because the olives are nopt ripe. It's the greenest oil I've ever seen. I think normal pressing time in Sicily is November, and my usual favorite may be from somewhat riper olives, probably pressed in November. Their new oil is exported, too, but usually sells out by special order so I never see it. I know the olives should not be too ripe, or else they will not be in perfect unspoiled condition, and I think then the oil may be too acid, but I'm not sure. In Tuscany, I think the pressing is later, probably December.

My olive-oil preferences are both from France: Alziari, from the shop in Nice, and any of the good oils from the area around Nyons. The Alpilles area also produces excellent olive oil.

I really know Spanish olive oil, preferably from Jaen.

Good Greek olive oil (eg Kalamata) is hard to beat. I think it's because the Greeks don't pick the olives - they just wait until they fall off the trees of their own accord. So they are really ripe and luscious and make a richer, sweeter oil.

The other thing about olive oil (and the reason I have about 4 different ones on my shelf) is the many different "tastes"--floral, peppery, smooth, etc. I agree the green is pretty. The Costco Kirkland oil will be dated as the "Nov./Dec. harvest 2003" in the case of this year.

Xenos, I'm thining about what you said about the ripe olives and I have a question (but I rambled, so it's further down in my message).

I like Greek olive oil. To me, the Sicilian oils are closer in taste to Greek oil than to the Tuscan or Provençal oils (which are very different from each other). I loved the really good olive oil in Greece. When I get "ordinary" olive oil at home in the supermarket, I often buy some of the Greek brands, which are from olives grown in Greece, instead of the standard Italian brands, which are bottled in Italy, but could be from olives from anywhere (not necessarily bad, and possibly very good, but just not specified). Where I live I do not see any special olive oils from Greece. Usually the very good oils marketed where I live are from Italy or France.

I always thought that good olive oil was from olives that are ripe. Greek and Sicilian oils seem to taste riper and sweeter than Tuscan oils, which I think are made from less ripe olives, maybe because the olives don't ripen as fully in the more northern climate. When i was in Sicily in November a year ago, it was olive harvest time in some areas. From what I could see, the olives were not being plucked, but it also didn't seem that people were harvesting whatever had fallen by itself the day before. They seemed to be putting cloths under the trees, and I think they shook the branches or tapped the olives to make the olives fall. (That's what I do to pick pears from my overproductive pear tree, except that I don't put a cloth underneath.) I visited two different olive mills, one in the Madonie Mts. area, and one in the Nebrodi Mts. I saw olives brought in by various people to be pressed, and they ranged from moderately unripe to extremely ripe and wrinkled and beginning to rot. A few people explained to me that the olives should not be too ripe, because then they are beginning to decompose and the oil will not be perfect. (I think they said the oil will be too acid.) The conversations were in Italian, and it's possible I misunderstood something. In Greece, are the olives used after they've started to shrivel a little, or are they used when they are at their peak and just ready to drop, but before they have begun to change character after being off the tree?

Spain, from Andalusia.

Good morning, have to put in my two cents worth and that is I prefer a
dark green olive oil from SICILY. For
cooking and frying, really prefer the
aftertaste of the Sicilian oils, preferably from the area east of Palermo, Termini Imerese..
Richard of LaGrange Park, Il..

I love the peppery olive oils of Lucca.

cmt, I think the Greeks give the trees a bit of a shake every now and then, so the olives don't get to the shrivelled stage.

They spread nets under the trees to make it easier to gather the olives up and help prevent them getting bruised as they fall. It can be a bit like an assault course sometimes walking through a Greek olive grove and avoiding all the nets that are lying on the ground or suspended a few feet in the air :-)

My olive oil, from Provence, the Moulin de Jean Marie Cornille in Maussane. The choice of Provençal chefs.
I second the Aziari that I brought back also. and ther's a wonderful Spanish one I bought in a huge tin.(forgot the name)

cmt,
My 2 Spanish favorites:
Extra Virgen "Duque de Baena", from Baena, Córdoba province
Extra Virgen "Caroliva" from Linares (Jaén)

Greek !

Topping bcause of a recent flurry of interest re olive oils.

My all time favorite is from Crete!

On another thread someone mentioned smoiking. Olive oil doesn't burn as quickly as other oils, so unless you leave it on high heat and forget about it, it probably won't start smoking. But if it does, I think it's best to discard it and start again with fresh oil.

Question for those who prefer French oils. Do the ones you like have a definite olive taste and smell? I found most French oils too mild for me, but I don't have too much experience with them.

cmt,
It is kind of wasteful to cook with extra virgin, no real benefit to speak of, and they do have a low smoke point.

May I suggest that you try an oil from Tuscany that is superior to many of the roughly produced "peppery" Tuscan oils.

Laudemio is an organic oil made at the Fattoria di Maiano near Florence. It has a distinctly Tuscan perfume, and a fruity, soft (by Tuscan standards) taste.

Personally, I prefer the oils from Spain but if YOU are doing the cooking then I'll gladly eat it with your own favorite.

t

While in Umbria, we visited an olve oil factory and toured with the owner.

He explained that the proper way to tast olive oil was similar to tasting wine. Pour some into a glass and look at it, smell it and drink it.

He said that using bread to taste was not an accurate way to taste olvie oil.

Tuscany: Lucca and Mugello area.
Puglia and Umbria.

We go through alot of live oil at our house. For Italian, we did bring home a bottle of L'olionovo from Castellina in Chianti when we were there. Apparently one can get it a specialty shops in the US> In the meantime for you California folks we have been buying Bariani Extra Virgin Olive Oil(stone crushed, cold presses and unfiltered) at the Berkeley Farmers' Market. You can find it in a variety of specialty shops as well around CA. We buy the October Harvest Special edition which has more intense flavor. The family farm and press is in Sacramento area. For orders etc: [email protected]

I like the extra virgin olive oil I get from SAM's Club in the huge jug. It's Bertolli's, but I have no idea of what are of Italy it's produced in. I'll have to look at the jug to see. I wanted to buy some olive oil at O & Company in Paris, but we were in the Marais and didn't want to carry it around all day. We figured, since there's a shop near our hotel, we could get it there. Predictably, we didn't get back, and the same thing happened with L'Occitane... I tried to go there our last morning, and it was 9:00 AM -- they didn't open until 10:00 AM, which was too late for us, so I ordered my usual large tube of L'Occitane Shea butter hand cream from Sephora online. I didn't order it from L'Occitane, as they don't say that they have secure ordering, and the shipping is a little less with Sephora. I've also ordered many times many times from Sephora, and their service is very good.

Best,
Sandy

I like the Sicilian variety of olive oils too, they are nice and strong. In the summer here in the US I go to Greek festivals and buy their oils too. I think they are similar.

A little note: if you have some oil that has gotten a little past its prime or was left open or whatever to ruin the taste, use it to polish and refresh wooden furniture. I even pour some on my hardwood floors and spread it around with a mop and the color deepens and looks so much better, even takes off scuff marks. Don't worry it seeps right in and by the end of the day it is not wet or oily, just beautiful.

Sandypaws -- There is an Oliviers & Co. in Grand Central -- NYC. I don't know where you live, but maybe there are more of them in the U.S. besides this one. I really like this store because you can taste all the oils before buying. I was skeptical about their "flavored" oils, but I smelled & tasted the basil olive oil -- it truly smells like fresh basil & it is wonderful over tomato/mozz. if you don't have fresh basil.

I also love J. Leblanc olive oils in Paris. There is a small shop in the 6th arr. They also have a wonderful pistachio oil which is lovely paired with avocado.

The smoking point of olive oil is 410 degrees.

Croatian.

Nocinonut: Doesn't olive oil, or any oil, make the dirt stick to yiour floor? I have occasionally used a little bit of olive oil on certain wood furniture.

Also, FYI, if you ever accidentally (how else?!) get polyurethane in your hair, let me tell you that you can get it out with olive oil! Probably any oil will work, but olive oil was what I had on hand when this emergency arose. I had been polyurethaning an unfinished computer desk in a hurry a few days before the arrival of my first, and so far only, computer. In a burst of conscientiousness, I was doing the underside of the furniture, too. Apparently I kept bumping my hair into the wet bottom of the desk. By the time I was finished, the polyurethane all over my head had dried to a crisp. I couldn't possibly get a comb through it. Neither turpentine nor a crew cut appealed to me as options. Since polyurethane is an OIL-based varnish, I though maybe some more oil would loosen up the varnish that had only recently hardened on my hair. So I slathered olive oil all over my hair, and then washed it all out. It worked perfectly. My hair was extra-shiny after this.

cmt, no it doesn't, but my floors are old and tend to be dry and just suck up the oil in a hour or so. I left one part undone under a throw rug and you can really see how much better the oiled part looks.

Had to laugh about your polyurethane accident (how else, indeed!).

A few drops also works as a good massage oil too, make you feel very Meditereanean!

Nocinonut: After my olive-oil varnish-removal feat, I not only felt Mediterranean, but I smelled pretty "ethnic" for the next day, too.

I bet you enticed alot of hungry people that day too.

cmt -- you made me laugh! I did the same thing with paint once. Another household tip -- olive oil helps open old windows. I used oodles of it on the windows of our (previous) 1790 home. This was after my husband brilliantly tried to "loosen" them up with a hammer.

Ha, olive oil: the miracle fluid. And just think, we can eat it too!