Olive Oil - Quality Matters

Olive oil is all the rave these days because of it’s health-promoting and longevity-enhancing properties, but how should you determine the quality of the oil you are purchasing? Here are some helpful guidelines.
 

Helpful Tip #1: Stick with Extra Virgin

When you shop, stick with extra virgin olive oil. It’s the most flavorful, nutritious, and most natural form of olive oil. It’s also the only grade that retains its natural phenols (antioxidants) and other health-promoting compounds. Extra virgin olive oil is cold-pressed, meaning it’s not extracted using high heat or harsh chemicals. All other olive oil grades, such as “virgin,” “pure,” or “light,” have been chemically refined to mask defects, which typically destroys the healthful phenols.
 

Helpful Tip #2: Avoid Stale Supermarket Olive Oil

Even if the label says “extra virgin,” you’re not home free. Many supermarket olive oils are old, stale, rancid, adulterated, or even counterfeit.

Olive oil, unlike wine, does not get better with age. Olive oil remains at its zenith of glorious flavor and nutritional content for about six months after the harvest. The problem is, harvest-fresh olive oil is almost impossible to find in supermarkets.

Most olive oil is shipped to the US on slow-moving cargo ships. Then it languishes in warehouses and on store shelves for months that can cause the oil to become stale and rancid. When you shop for olive oil, forget the “best used by” date on the label. It tells you nothing about how recently the olive oil was pressed. You need to find olive oil with a harvest date on the label, preferably a date no more than six months before your date of purchase.

Unfortunately, the producers of mediocre, mass-market olive oils sold in stores do not put pressing dates on the label because they don’t want you to know how old, stale, or rancid their oils may be.

You can find superb, award-winning olive oils by doing your homework online. Located around the world are quite a few dedicated artisanal producers who offer their award-winning, 100% pure, harvest-fresh olive oils directly to consumers.

However, if you’d like to save some time researching dozens of online olive oil producers, we invite you to try the Extra Virgin Olive Oils we’ve found to be superior based on our research.

The oils are available in store at the Dragon’s Den until supplies last.

Each 200 ml bottle is priced at $21 with a discounted price of $57 total when buying 3 (combining varieties is okay). 

These are our choices:
 

Coratina Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Italy (Gold Medal Winner!), 200ml

This is a robust, high polyphenol very fresh tasting Coratina with the typical herbal flavors of the variety. The aroma and taste are both very herbal and spicy-green with some nice tropical fruit flavors too, but dominated by fresh-cut-grass, mint and cinnamon. It is very well balanced with nice bitterness and distinct pungency. The aftertaste is black pepper, mint, and cinnamon.
 

Ogliarola Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Italy (Gold Medal Winner!), 200ml

This is a nice, medium-intensity oil that is quite interesting. The aroma is of both sweet, ripe fruit and green herbs. It tastes soft, buttery, and like cooked vegetables, but finishes with a strong herbaceous, cinnamon, black pepper and chili pepper finish.
 

Picual Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Spain (Gold Medal Winner!), 200ml
 

This a fantastic, very fresh, robust Picual oil from the Aguilar Estate in southern Spain. It has all the goodness that is typical of an earlier harvested Picual. The aroma is tropical and herbal. The ripe flavors are very subtle (tropical and passion fruit). The herbal green flavors dominate as a complex mix of artichoke, green banana, green tea, mint, nettle, tomato leaf, and cinnamon. It stays persistent in the mouth with a black pepper and chili pepper finish.

These oils are certified to be 100% pure extra virgin. This means you’ll never again have to worry about serving your family or guests olive oil that’s fake, stale, counterfeit, or diluted with cheap, potentially harmful ingredients.

Thanks for reading!
~The Dragon's Den Team