Favorite Olive Oil

hmmmm....like wine the nuiances make olive oil special ......green fruity is probably my favorite and hardest to find.
I've got a few gems around now and will taste them side by side in the next couple of days and give you the results.
MacEvoy's (sp?) has some good ones, they are in CA.

Local oil

You're close enough to check out a local, handcrafted oil:

Bariani Olive Oil
9460 Bar Du Lane Sacramento CA 95829
916-689-9059 (phone & fax)
email: Bariani@aol.com

They show up at most Farmers Markets in Walnut Creek (every Sunday year-round) and have some very nice oil.

Mike

Hi shel; I use Bertoli e.v. for everything. Ive been using it for 30 years so maybe I'm just used to it. I like the nose as well as fruity flavor. I can find it in any market around the country and is reasonably priced. I should add that you sparked my interest and will try something different as soon as I finish my last 3 gal..lol...good cookin...cookie

I've been following this thread with a lot of interest. I've never seen many olive oils available where I am forced to shop. Bertolli is always available so I'll give it a try. I don't remember what brand I've been using but it's not a very expensive one. I only use it for sauteing and it's regular olive oil, not extra virgin. Since I'd like to make some vinaigrettes for the first time, I need some good evoo.

Just a little anecdote that happened to me a few years ago:

BTW, you don't want to ever break a bottle! When I worked in a grocery warehouse, I set a pallet of cake mix on top of a pallet of olive oil that looked full on top. Well, it wasn't so my pallet of cake mix shifted and ended up busting a case of the olive oil. OMG, what a mess that was to try and clean up! The fork lift was sliding around like a car on a sheet of ice and I couldn't get off or I'd slip and get hurt. It was hilarious and took me a long time to live that one down. lol

Spanish is the way to go

I am a proud Italian, and if my relatives ever got word I was saying this, I would be excommunicated. The best olive oils are the ones from Spain. Greek olive oils are thin on flavor, and Italian oils tend to go towards the grassy taste with a peppery finish. But Spanish oils have big, robust olive flavors.

I was in the town of Olivas (how appropriate) in Spain and bought a bottle of oil that was there local "generic" kind. No, I don't recall the name, and I doubt you could get it here anyway. It was about the single best bottle of oil I have ever had. I have looked for oils from this area of Spain ever since, but with little luck...

Laudemio - from Tuscany - is a very peppery olive oil, but is about the best example of an Italian oil as can be found.

McEvoy is very nice for a Californian oil. They are growing by leaps and bounds, and not at all undeservedly.

As a gift, I was recently given a bottle of Australian Olive Oil - from a company called "Kangaroo Paw" (as in the flower). It has a nice, smooth finish with a hint of pepperyness. I just wish the olive flavor was a little bolder - but it is quite nice.

And I have also tried Giulianno Hazan's line of oils and vinegars - A&H brand. The olive oil was thin and totall uninteresting, but the red wine vinegar they make is the single best I have ever had.

Hope this all helps!

I just bought a bottle of Arbequina at my neat little market a couple of blocks from home. Tasting it straight I wasn't too excited but dipping it with Whole Foods 365 basalmic and wow, the combination really sharp, funny but tasting that basalmic alone, it seemed a little softer than I thought I would like but using it in a ceaser dressing made with buttermilk instead of eggs it's pretty good too, but dipping, the combination :crazy:really hit my yummy button.
Jannie

I am an Italian as well, and they don't offer a huge selection around my grocery stores, but the best bang for the buck is the Goya. I never tried it until The Washington Post had an olive oil review and rated that as one of the better oils.

I found the Washington Post's comparison:

I second that..... Bertoli's

In all honesty, I don't see any meaningful difference between brands of Olive Oil. A good quality, first pressing oil will do for me what I require in cooking. The brand is not as important as some make out.
I don't know if the same pretensions abound in discussing Olive Oil as with wine, but I have always felt folks make way too much out of small distinctions, the most subtle of nuances, and over wrought descriptions.
That said, I usually buy Bertolli extra virgin, in the large jugs.

finally.......got a pen and paper, sat down with the three evo's on the counter and took notes.....

1) Tibvrtini Novello, hand rake used to pull olives from trees during the Fall Harvest. Roman Campagna
light in color, light/dense fruity, then grassy then at the back of your throat slightly peppery.

2)Nunez de PRADO, family estates crop.
Baena, Spain
unfiltered
Green strong grassy flavor, followed by an olive note

3)Laudemro
Frescobaldi
Tuscan
dark green/gold, strong olive, then peppery followed by grass

I don't like olives and by olive oil I can smell and taste the olives. I never buy that again.
At home we have diet oil at the moment.

must be pam or liquid margarine? wrong thread for sure.

you gotta know what side of the issue I'm on......butter, olive oil, rendered lard....no manmade chemicals in my fat please.
I've been watching Julia Child's dvd's of her earlier shows and she is using cream, butter unstiltingly, combos of olive oil and butter.....gotta love it! She's one of my all time favorite teachers.

Shel, it was interesting doing a side by side tasting of the oils, funny how they had similar elements that came through at different times with different strengths.

Great list shroomgirl, thanks.
Unfortunatly here we have a good, small selection. I used Bertroli for years, but now our Safeway has a house brand that is excellent. I use Extra Virgin and Light, use little butter unless the recipe needs that flavor, never developed a taste for it, sorry Julia!
Did taste some Spanish oils at a shop in Seattle, heavenly!!
Thanks again,
Nan

the good oil

If you want to try a fresh lovely olive oil I got one from Andronico's in San Francisco it is called Evooroo (Australian olive oil) at $9.99 it was such great value for an excellent olive oil. The problem with most Spanish and Italian oil producers is they send all their crap oil here. Much of it is rancid and I would guess not extra virgin, they do produce some good oils but they keep it

The fact is most people would not know if EVOO was rancid or not and the producers know it. You only have to read most of these comments by chefs or cooks to realise that very little is known.

I could kick myself for not reading this thread before picking up more olive oil..
I have always used the regular as I find the EV oil a bit on the strong side for my tastes.

But I'm always up to retrying especially after reading all the good things you all say about using a 'good' EV olive oil..
So, I bought myself what I thought was a 'good' EVoo.. A 250 ml. bottle of Filippo Berio organic, cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil that was on sale for 8 bux..

Have to say this bottle turned out to be the most vile tasting oil I've ever purchased!

I made up a mixture of fig balsamic vinegar, bit of chopped garlic and fresh herbs, plus this EVoo for basting vegi kabobs that I wanted to bbq..

It was horrid, I had to toss the whole mixture and remake it with my regular olive oil..
I don't know if just this brand of EVoo, but even the aroma of it was nasty..
All I can think of is that perhaps I ended up with a bottle that had been sitting on the shelf for too long, (why no best before dates on oil by the way?) but it's really ticking me off that I've wasted 8 bux on something thats going into the trash!

Lesson 1
Filippo Berio EVOO was recently judged one of the worst on the supermarket shelves. If you want to at least have a fighting chance of purchasing a half decent EVOO do not buy oil that is in a clear bottle. There are 4 main factors that deteriorate olive oil, they are heat, water, air and the worst one of all LIGHT. Light kills the polyphenols (all the anti oxidants)and speeds up the rancimat time (causing rancidity).
It’s funny Bertolli has come up with a great new product to stop this problem, a can! Why not just put it in a dark bottle? Because it's twice the cost.

Yes I saw that on nortoriouslyKENs post. Unfortunately I did not check on ratings before buying the Filippo Berio brand..
I just assumed since it was organic, and cold pressed it would be a good oil.. My mistake for sure..

It was in a very dark green bottle though.. I suppose that was the one good thing in their favor..

And, this is just a wonderment here.. If the light kills the polyphenols and causes rancidity, why are most olive oil cruets one sees in the shops made of clear glass then??

Cruets are for show, it wouldn't be much of a show if you couldn't see the star attraction would it!