THE "LIQUID GOLD"
True Olive tree (Olea europaea L.) oil is today still a treasure to be discovered.
Our world is consuming more and more olive oil, but unfortunately only a few get to taste the true virgin olive oil. The so commonly called olive oil, light olive oil, extra light and pure olive oil are all industrially refined. None is virgin olive oil. In other words, they are not made by simply crushing olives, like extra virgin and virgin olive oils are. The word “light” means it has been refined to have a lighter flavor.
What is extra virgin and virgin olive oil? How does it differ from other grades of olive oil, like pure or light? There is so much confusion surrounding extra virgin and virgin olive oil – and olive oil generally and even more unfamiliarity regarding all that concerns to olives.
For starters, olive oil is among the top food items on supermarket shelf that’s likely to be a great problem, especially due to the wide variety of olive oils available and the true interpretation of their labels. There are also adulterants found in extra virgin olive oil, for example: cheaper ingredients like hazelnut oil, sunflower oil, refined olive oil, palm oil, or peanut oil, which makes the problem of choosing a real extra virgin or virgin olive oil even more difficult. Only these two categories extra Virgin and Virgin can be called true olive oil. But even this is not enough, since many producers take advantage of the fact that consumers in some countries are not well-informed about olive oil and sell one category of oil at the price of another in order to make a profit. So, you must be on your guard and read the label very carefully. Of dourse that ideally, you should see for yourself the olives on the orchards, ask about the age of trees, confirm that farmers do not use pesticides and treat the soils only using organic substances and natural materials. Then you should also be sure that in the production process, there is no use whatsoever of synthetic chemical substances (additives, preservatives) or genetically modified organisms. The result olive oil would then be for sure extra virgin or virgin olive oil. Of course this is not possible for the majority, but at least you can gather a lot of information from the manufacturer and perhaps even more just by asking a friend that knows a little more about what is truly an extra virgin or virgin olive oil. He can advise you better on the differences that you read on the label and perhaps allert you for some oil that is refined so it can never be considered a true olive oil. The general accepted classification of olive oils are the following (we add up the most common designations that we may find on the lables of olive oil bottles). To sum it up: if you want to taste a true olive oil, then make sure you choose only an oil that respects the first two following categories. Of course that there are some uses for refined olive oils like frying, but only because the refined olive oil is of a much lesser quality and much less expensive.
OLIVE OIL CLASSIFICATION
Extra virgin olive oil including organic or eco-friendly olive oil (Bío, Eco): This olive oil can be seen as the fresh juice of the olives, like a freshly squeezed fruit juice, without any additives or preservatives. It is obtained by purely mechanical pressing of the olives, without using any chemical or biochemical additives. During the production of this oil, the olives are not subjected to any processing, except washing, decantation, centrifugation and filtration. It is a product of the highest quality and the way it is produced has hardly altered since the days of ancient Egypt. All over the world it is called “liquid gold”. This type of olive oil has the greatest nutritional value which it retains for 18 months, and in some cases for as long as two and even three years, as long as you maintain it duly closed (avoiding oxidation), at a temperature between 53º and 77ºF and away from any light. It can be used like any other oil, but it is best used as is or when preparing sauces and dressing salads, since it is a purely organic product which has many beneficial properties for a healthy way of life and it should be used just as it is.
The flavour of extra Virgin olive oil depends on the type of olives from which it is made, and comes in various combinations of flavours: green fruit, like young apples or nuts, mountain grass, and other. But it should all have a bitter taste. If the oil is young and has only just been produced the bitterness is more marked, and if the oil has been in the bottle for more than six months the bitterness is less strong. This also depends on the type of olives and their blend. It can be likened to wine. In order to achieve the optimum flavour winemakers mix wine of different types to arrive at the optimum flavour. The same happens with virgin oil, the best type of olives are mixed to achieve an optimum flavour. All Extra Virgin oils have a maximum acidity of 0.8% (expressed as oleic acid).
https://www.aceitedelasvaldesas.com/en/faq/preguntas-aceite-de-oliva/acidez-del-aceite-de-oliva/
Virgin olive oil: Virgin olive oil is made in the exact same way as extra virgin olive oil but unlike it, does not reach the category of excellence 'superior quality'. This is because the organoleptic properties of virgin olive oil are somewhat altered and do not exceed the strict tests of a Tasting Panel (and, therefore, do not get enough points to be considered a virgin olive oil "EXTRA". The acidity of virgin olive oil may rise to 2°.
TASTING PANEL: The EVOOs and VOOs have to pass this test, not only to value the enormous effort of the olive producers and oil mills, but also so that the consumers who acquire an extra virgin olive oil not only find a product according to the category declared on its label, but one that matches its description and without organoleptic defects. Sometimes it is very difficult and in some ways very subjective to classify an olive oil as extra virgin or virgin only. The tasting panel which is a panel of human evaluaters, record their sensory responses to the products being tested. An olive oil can pass all the physical-chemical analysis to be considered Extra Virgin, but if does not succeed in the tasting panel, then it will be considered only Virgin.
https://oliveoiltest.com/knowledge-base/sensory-testing/
Olive Oil/Refined Olive Oil/First Cold Press Olive Oil/Pure Olive Oil/Light Olive Oil/Extra Light Olive Oil
“Olive oil” is a product obtained from mixing refined olive oil (85%) and extra Virgin olive oil (15%). It may have a maximum acidity of up to 1% expressed as oleic acid. Although this olive oil can not be compared with extra virgin or virgin olive oils, it can be used in any dish or recipe. In Spain (and we can say all over the world) this is the most widely used category of olive oil. It is ideal for frying, since the fact that it contains more stable fatty acids than other vegetable oils means that the smoke point is higher than that for normal frying. Frying food using olive oil does not produce carcinogens. This oil can also be used for dressing salads, preparing sauces, and it does not taste bitter, if you are not used to a bitter taste. But your dish will still be healthy, without the unique flavour of Extra Virgin olive oil, which imparts unique flavours to any dish. To conclude, all of these designations can never be compared with Extra Virgin or Virgin, so they can never be considered as "liquid gold".
Pomace Olive Oil or Second pressing olive oil
This oil is obtained from a second pressing of the fruit of the olive tree. For example, the process is the same as that for obtaining any vegetable oil, and uses organic solvents and a high temperature. Following extraction, the oil obtained is mixed with Extra Virgin oil to reduce the acidity and improve the quality of the end product. This oil does not have as much nutritional value as the other two types of olive oil, but it contains the same vitamins and minerals that are present in the natural oil, only in a smaller quantity. You can use it in any recipe, but it is better advisable to use it for frying, where a large amount of oil is required (for deep frying, for example), where it would be a shame to use good quality expensive oil. This oil is significantly cheaper than the others. So, of course, of much lower quality.
In Spain it is customary to have two or three different types of olive oil in the house and to use each one for specific purposes. If we are entertaining guests and we have to dress our best salad then we would use Extra Virgin or Virgin! And on special occasions we would use DOP Extra Virgin olive oil so that we can share with our friends the pleasure of its unusual flavour. In order to enjoy this magical taste the Spanish (they even have a special verb – disfrutar) do not even mix it with anything, they simply pour the oil into small saucers and dip pieces of bread straight into the oil. AND THEIR HAPPINESS IS COMPLETE, THEY DON’T NEED ANYTHING ELSE - well, perhaps a glass of good wine and some Iberian ham. The Spanish adore various things fried in a vast amount of oil (deep-fried): fish, vegetables, seafood. For this they use olive oil or second pressing Pomace oil.
So why do some grades of olive oil require refining? In the case of “pure” or “light” oils, the refining process removes defects such as off-flavors and odors. Without the refining, the oil would be unfit for human consumption – and considered lampante oil.
Lampante oil: Lampante oil is oil that, like all first pressing oils, is obtained mechanically and directly from the olives, but from poor quality olives gathered from the ground which have been bruised or affected by the cold. The name of this oil comes from its use as fuel for oil lamps and wick lamps. Lampante oil is currently used to be further refined to obtain a refined olive oil that has no smell, colour or taste, that is non-commercial in the EU, oil which in turn is mixed with oils from the first cold pressing (between 2 and 20%) to obtain an olive oil that is indispensable for frying. Pure refined olive oil is used in the production of mayonnaises and sauces. The olive pulp is subsequently processed using various solvents to obtain a refined olive oil from the residue.
Anyone buying olive oil should use the composition of the oils to distinguish between the various types. As defined in law, oil of the highest category is extra virgin or virgin olive oil, and this is ideally suitable both for children and adults with an age range of 6 months to 100 years or more. This oil is beneficial in all respects and is the only one of all the categories that can be called true olive oil, the golden liquid. Every category of oil has its own name, and the translations must not be mixed up or changed, which could confuse the consumer. The name “olive oil” means a mixture of refined olive oil (this always refers to the refining of the oils from the first pressing) and oils from the first pressing. “Pomace” oil is a mixture of refined oil from the second pressing and oils from the first pressing. Therefore it is simply against the law for a label to identify “pomace” as “olive oil”. Pomace is not an olive oil.
Although Spain is the biggest producer by far in the world (responsible for 40 to 45% of the world production), that does not mean it produces the best olive oil. If you look carefully and do some research on olive oil, you will find that in Portugal 95% of the olive oil is considered virgin or extra virgin, which puts Portugal on the top olive oil quality producers in the world. And for those we want to try to find the differences within only Portugal olive oils, they will find that in the north, the great majority of olive oil comes from traditional olive orchards, especially in TRAS-OS-MONTES region. Traditional olive growing can be described as a low-intensity production system, composed most of the times with old and very old trees, grown at a low density and generating small yields. Although these systems are environmentally sustainable, their economic viability has become an issue, since EU policies favour more intensive and competitive systems. Orchards that have not been intensified seem to be threatened by the recent reform of the EU olive and olive oil policy, as income support has been decoupled from production. The traditional olive growing has shown signs of declining. During the OLIVERO project, traditional olive production systems were identified and described in five target areas (Trás-os-Montes--Portugal, Cordoba and Granada/Jaen--Spain, Basilicata/Salerno--Italy, and West Crete--Greece).
Portugal olive trees qualities, size of explorations, timing of maturation, availability of water and the modern mills have brought Portugal to be among the10 biggest producers in the world with 350.000 hectares dedicated to olive oil production and that means that there is now a possibility to export a significant quantity to other countries.
If we look at Spain, Italy and Greece, they alone produce 90% of all the olive oil in the world. So, the competition is great and the only possibility for the portuguese olive oil is to make its quality known. Fortunately, some small, medium and big farms have in the past years invest a lot and every year you may see some portuguese olive oils win prizes concerning the great quality they present.
Most of the growth in portuguese olive oil production result today from super intensive plantations. More than 50% of the surface area planted using the super intensive system is found in Spain but it is followed by Portugal, Chile, USA, Tunisia, Morocco, France, Italy and Australia. Although these intensive systems were accepted by the international olive oil community, they are facing now some problems regarding the killing of birds by the thousands as a result of night time olive harvesting. Since the temperatures are cooler at night, the producers believe this to preserve the olive flavours but the machines seem to suck up countless numbers of birds that choose these trees to rest while on their migratory journey between Europe and North Africa.
Fortunately the traditional olive farms are still a lot in Portugal (representing around 30% of the portuguese olive oil production), so this "bird" problem will never be a concern to their farmers. There are other less known particularities with the big producers of intensive and super intensive farms that they do not like to refer or mention and those are the water eager dependency, nature enviroment changes due to the existance of olive trees of one or two qualities for kilometers around and of course the decrease in quality because of those factors alone, not to mention the use of pesticides and fertilizers of which the traditional is almost independent. The traditional farms on the north have also the advantadge of being populated with a mixture of very old olive trees of which only the old people can name the variety and relate the taste to the resulting oil. This is another bonus to the traditional olive oil that the intensive and super-intensive producers prefer to ignore.
For those who had the fortune of living in this small country and even more fortunately to live in the north of Portugal near Douro region, they still get to see the ripping of the olives every year and even better, to taste the olive oil from very old olive trees that nobody knows how long they were planted (nobody is alive today to really know their age). There are olive trees that only the old people know the variety. So, if you want to buy and plant today these varieties you simply won't find them anywhere. There are still varieties in Douro region not known by the experts and others that exist only in this region. Perhaps that is the reason for the olive oil to be always considered extra virgin and virgin olive oil and their taste is so good that the people who live in this mountains venerate these old trees so much.
You can go to Spain and you will find mainly four varieties: Picual, Cornicabra, Hojiblanca and Arbequina, although others exist but in a much smaller scale.
PICUAL
También conocida andaluza, jabata, marteño, lopereño, morcona, mollejona, nevado, nevado blanco, nevadillo, picúa, picudilla, Pico de Grula, pico real, salgar. Esla variedad más extendida en España, con cerca de 900.000 ha. En la provincia de Jaén es referente y ocupa aproximadamente el 97% de su superficie de olivar, y el 40% de las provincias de Córdoba y Granada.
CORNICABRA
cornatillo, cornetillo, cornicabra basta, cornicabra negra, corniche, corniche menudo, cornita, corval, cuernecillo, del piquillo, longar, longuera, ornal, osnal. Su nombre hace referencia a la forma curvada del fruto que recuerda al cuerno de la cabra. Cuenta con unas 300.000 hectáreas en su zona de influencia en el centro de la Península.
HOJIBLANCA
También se la conoce como lucentina, se cultiva fundamentalmente por las provincias de Málaga, Córdoba, Granada y Sevilla, y cuenta con unas 220.000 hectáreas. Su nombre hace referencia al color blanquecino de las hojas y es la tercera variedad más cultivada de España.
ARBEQUINA
También se la conoce como arbequí, arbequín, blancal, herbequín, oliva de Arbela, oliva de borjas blancas, del manglot. Es una de las variedades más importantes a nivel nacional, con 75.000 ha. Originaria de Lérida, se extendió por Cataluña y el Alto Aragón, y está presente por toda España.
CASTELLANA (VERDEJA)
También conocida como abucheña, reluciente, verdinal, verdeja, celdrana, limoncilla, teta de vaca. Se encuentra en zonas de Madrid, Cuenca, Guadalajara y algunas zonas de Albacete, con una superficie aproximada de 22.000 ha.
MANZANILLA
Variedad típica de Extremadura (se cultiva tanto en Cáceres como en Badajoz), ha extendido también su cultivo a Salamanca, Ávila y Madrid. El aceite que se obtiene de esta variedad es verde profundo, y tiene un gran equilibrio entre amargo y picante, y tiene un alto contenido frutado. Extraordinariamente aromática: manzana, hierba, plátano maduro, macedonia y tomateira. Tiene una gran imagen y es considerado uno de los mejores aceites de España.
There are perhaps two hundreds more cultivars or varieties all over Spain and this richness of flavours is only known to a very few people in a very few villages.
HIDDEN TREASURE
In Portugal we find the same numbers even if Portugal produces less than 1/20th of Spain.
We found eight different varieties only in the Douro montainous region: Verdeal, Madural, Cordovil, Cobrançosa, Carrasca, Galega, Picual and Negrinha.
There are perhaps hundreds of more cultivars or varieties all over Portugal and this richness of flavours is only known to a very few people in a very few villages. Olive trees are old, people are old, methods are old and ripping is hard on the cold winters but the olive oil is new and perfect every year and make our senses explode in joy when we taste the magnificent juice produced. You can be sure that the resulting olive oil is always extra virgin. The true "Golden Liquid".
