The Best Olive Oil
There's no accounting for taste, and no one can tell someone else what to like. But how do you know if an olive oil is the best? After all, there's a huge variety of different types and a wide range of quality. Just like with wine, there's the best olive oil, the very worst olive oil, and plenty in between. And of course, you want the best olive oil, nothing less!
To put it bluntly: if you're looking for the best olive oil, avoid anything that doesn't say "Extra Virgin." Also, avoid all clear, often plastic, bottles. Those are the refined oils. Real, healthy extra virgin olive oil comes in a dark bottle.
All olive oil from The Olive Label isn't just good olive oil; it's the finest, superior-quality extra virgin olive oil. We've visited the olive growers, met them, tasted and tested their olive oil, and sourced the best for you and featured it on our website. So look no further. The best olive oil is available right here and will be delivered to your home the next business day! All you have to do is decide which of the very best you prefer. Green, firm, bitter, or a bit softer and sweeter? It's all possible. Taste and enjoy real food!
Recognizing the best olive oil
You can recognize the best olive oil by smelling and tasting it. But that's not always possible in stores, and even less so online.
Can you recognize the best olive oil without tasting it? Just like buying wine, it's tricky. If you can't taste it, you have three sources of information: the bottle, the label, and the price.
As mentioned, real extra virgin olive oil comes in a dark bottle. This is to keep out (UV) light, which olive oil can't tolerate. So, we avoid clear bottles. Like most people, you'll first check the label, but ultimately, you'll be guided by the price. Unfortunately, a low price, when it comes to extra virgin olive oil, is almost never a good deal.
The Label
Can you recognize the best olive oil, also known as superior quality extra virgin olive oil, without tasting it?
The first thing you should pay attention to is the label. It should at least state that it's "Extra Virgin Olive Oil." Incidentally, the term "Extra Virgin" is the French term, and in the Netherlands it's also sometimes used in English: "Extra Virgin" or Italian: "Extra Virgine," but they refer to the same thing.
If the bottle says anything other than "Extra Virgin"? For example, if it just says "Virgin" (or "Vierge") without "Extra," leave the oil alone. That's low-quality olive oil.
Don't even think about leaving the bottle if it says "mixed," "blended," "light," or "mixed." These are all nonsense terms created by marketing. That's almost certainly not extra virgin olive oil.
Often, the label says "packed in Italy" or, combined with "olives from the European Union." That's not what you want to see! You assume that a bottle with an Italian-sounding brand and a label full of Italian-sounding terms must also be olive oil from Italy. Unfortunately. Italian olive oil is considered the best in the world, so crooks exploit that. With clever language and marketing tricks, it looks like olive oil from Italy, but in fact, it's olive oil from another country, shipped to Italy and packaged there in a fancy bottle with an Italian label.
This fake olive oil, which is said to be produced in Italy, is sold to supermarkets in countries where most consumers are not really familiar with good olive oil, such as the Netherlands and Germany.
Fraud, deception and deception
Counterfeit olive oil! Olive oil fraud is a centuries-old, international problem, and there's a lot of money involved. This also applies to the major brands of olive oil sold in supermarkets. For years, Italian police have been busting international olive oil gangs. In 2023 and 2024, it was all over the news again: gangs counterfeiting olive oil . In 2019, police also busted a German-Italian gang that generated at least 8 million euros a year in revenue from such fraudulent counterfeit olive oil. This is still a regular occurrence in 2023. See this article .
These gangs mix cheap, low-quality oil, such as sunflower oil, with chlorophyll, beta-carotene (for color), and soybean oil. It's also common for poor-quality oil to be chemically treated and mixed with a little good olive oil to make it edible. They create a fancy label, put "Olio Extra Virgine di Oliva, made or packed in Italy," and a fancy Italian-sounding name on the label, and the trap is set for the unsuspecting consumer.
That consumer is usually in a hurry at the supermarket, quickly glances at the label, sees some Italian-sounding terms and "extra Virgine di Oliva," decides it looks good, then sees the low price and is seduced. That's a cash cow for the olive oil mafia. Oil that was readily available in large supermarkets.
Olive oil from the supermarket
Can you even buy good olive oil in the supermarket? No. With the few exceptions that prove the rule, there's a good chance the olive oil you bought at the supermarket isn't good. Or just plain disgusting and bad for your health. It could also be counterfeit oil. The reason is actually quite simple. It's simply in the DNA of supermarkets to sell a lot for the lowest price. The main reason why good olive oil doesn't exist in supermarkets is therefore the supermarket's business model and market forces that lead to bulk oil for little money. Years of research by the founder of the leading Italian wine and olive oil magazine Merum has shown that 95% (!) of the olive oil sold doesn't qualify as Extra Virgin. So good olive oil is hard to find. That's why we buy the best olive oil for you, without intermediaries, directly from the farmer. You can read more about supermarket olive oil in our blog here .
Extra Virgin
The term "Extra Virgin" is not just any term. Extra virgin is legally protected by European regulations. Olive oil labeling must comply with the general rules for food labeling, as laid down in EU Regulation 1169/2011 . These European labeling regulations are intended to protect consumers from misleading information about the oil's characteristics, such as composition, quality, origin, category, and production method.
Acidity of olive oil
According to the EU and the IOC (International Olive Oil Council), olive oil can only be called "extra virgin" if it meets four chemical requirements. The most important of these is low acidity, which must not exceed 0.8%. This means that the amount of bad, acidic oil (the fatty acid content) in the olive oil must not exceed 0.8%. Incidentally, the acidity of premium, fresh, extra virgin olive oil is much lower. The best olive oil sold by The Olive Label.shop often does not exceed 0.2%.
And then there are three more technical values we'd like to share for the sake of completeness. The most important is the peroxide level. The peroxide level indicates the degree of spoilage of the oil. Anything a farmer does incorrectly during harvesting and processing increases the peroxide level. If you process olives too late after harvesting, press them too hot, store them incorrectly, etc., the peroxide levels quickly rise, and that's not what you want. Peroxides are harmful to our bodies. A fresh, good olive oil therefore has very low peroxide levels.
To be considered extra virgin olive oil, the peroxide level must not exceed 20 mcg/kg, but that's already too high for truly fresh olive oil. Values of 30 or higher make the oil taste rancid.
The third requirement is that the UV measurement (degree of resistance to spoilage) of K270nm must be less than 0.22, the K232nm must be less than 2.5, and the Delta K must be less than 0.01. Fourth, the amount of wax/peel residue in the oil, the so-called ceras residual content, must not exceed 250mg/kilo. These values primarily provide the basic requirements for the legally protected extra virgin designation, and that the oil has not been tampered with. It increases the likelihood of good olive oil, and the better these values, the less quickly the oil oxidizes and the better it is for frying and roasting. For everything about frying and roasting with olive oil, see this blog post .
The price
Once you've looked at the label first, look at the price. This is the second source of information.
Everyone knows that a half-liter of olive oil that costs €5 at the supermarket isn't the best olive oil. That's simply unacceptable. The production costs of a half-liter of genuine Mediterranean extra virgin olive oil, produced with love and respect for nature, are at least €6 to €10 in the country of origin. The same half-liter of olive oil in the Netherlands has to fetch at least €10 to €20 in stores, otherwise it's wasted.
So you might wonder what kind of olive oil you're getting if you buy half a liter at the supermarket for €5 or less. That's where the VAT is deducted, the price of the bottle, the cap and label, the supermarket margin, the wholesale margin, transport, marketing, etc. That leaves very little for the oil itself, and if prices are too low, the farmers can't survive either.
A higher price doesn't guarantee you're getting the best olive oil, but a cheap oil is almost certainly a bad oil. In short, if you can't taste the oil, it's wise to avoid cheap oil.
Recognizing the best olive oil when you can taste it
Once you've judged an oil by its label and price, and you've bought it, the real work can begin: tasting! But how do you do that? It's essentially the same as with wine. First, we smell it, and if it smells fresh and fruity, we start slurping.
Smell olive oil
Before you taste olive oil, first smell it. Pour a little olive oil onto a tablespoon or into a small glass. Warm the glass or spoonful of oil in the palm of your hand to release the aromas, and then smell it. Does the oil smell fresh and fruity? Do you smell green grass, tomato leaves, perhaps a hint of apple, or perhaps something spicy or even floral? Or do you detect the slightly sweeter aroma of ripe black olives? That's all fine.
Maybe you're not sure what to smell? Then trust your intuition and know that olive oil should never smell musty, sour, rancid, or moldy. Olive oil is, of course, a fat, but it shouldn't smell like rancid fat. Just like fresh fish shouldn't smell like fish. If the oil smells musty or rancid, like old nuts or stale butter, don't taste it and return it to the store. Most supermarket oils smell (and taste) bland, dull, and greasy. That's low-quality or old olive oil at best. That's not what we're looking for! The best olive oil should smell fruity, crisp, and fresh.
Taste the olive oil!
It's best to taste olive oil pure, without a piece of bread!
Grab a tablespoon or a small glass. Pour some oil onto the spoon or into the glass, then warm the spoon or glass with the oil slightly in your palm. This will help release the aromas more quickly.
Smell the olive oil first. Good oil shouldn't smell flat, rancid, or greasy! Discard it. Don't taste it! Good olive oil smells fruity, fresh, and crisp, and then you can taste it! Slurp the olive oil from your spoon and don't swallow immediately! Roll the oil around in your mouth and slurp some air through the corners of your mouth (tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth) to release the aromas, just like tasting wine.
What do you smell and taste? Cut grass, tomatoes, soft, sweet, bitter, apple? Try to describe what you taste. Then swallow the oil and wait a moment. Your throat should feel ticklish. You might need to cough. That's okay! That little tingle in your throat is the polyphenols, which are abundant in fresh, good olive oil. They are natural antioxidants, and you can sense them best when you taste the oil pure.
Properties of the best olive oil
The best extra virgin olive oil has at least the following 6 properties;
- The label is correct
- The price is right
- It is an extra virgin olive oil (acidity of not more than 0.8% (but preferably much lower)
- Smells fruity, ranging from light fruity to intense green grass
- It always tastes a bit bitter, some more than others. Bitter is good! Fresh olive oil from early-harvested olives has a high oleuropein content, which gives olive oil its bitter taste. The more the better! Oleuropein is an effective antioxidant that's very good for you. Italian olive oil, in particular, often has a bitter taste.
- Different olive oils have different flavor notes ranging from green grass, green tomatoes and/or apples, to herbaceous like artichoke and fig leaf and/or sweet, ripe, black olives
- It has a spicy kick in your throat. Those are the polyphenols, and that's good!
Finally
The best olive oil is a wonderful product. It's pure and natural, and incredibly healthy. It contains unsaturated fats and antioxidants like polyphenols and vitamin E, has anti-inflammatory properties, and it's good for us to use it daily. And you can use it in more dishes than just your salad. Drizzle it over your boiled potatoes or your boring green beans. Instant happiness! Almost any dish is enhanced by a good extra virgin olive oil! Truly good olive oil is an honest and delicious product. It's been consumed for over 6,000 years and combines the power of the sun with the best the earth has to offer.
Enjoy! Health is Wealth! O'Lives Great!