What’s a good olive oil? I’ve only had extra virgin olive oil, at least so far as I know, here in the United States but I am under the impression that olive oil served in other nations is a lot different than what I’m used to. Where can I find these different kinds of olive oil?
Marc
I can recommend California Olive Ranch. Shayna and Spiny Norman gave me some a couple of years ago and I really like it. I ended up getting six bottles a few months ago.
Keep a lookout for Olive Oil tastings. Oil importers put these on a local restaurants occasionally.
You can always take a trip to Napa / Sonoma CA, and try a wide variety of oils. Gourmet grocery stores will carry a good selection of oils, but they probably won’t have samplers available.
You really don’t want to ingest anything other than extra virgin. The lesser pressings are available in Europe, and in the U.S., but Europeans only eat it if they’re too poor to buy the good stuff. “Extra virgin” doesn’t mean that it has to be that clear, tasteless crap like Bertolli sells. Imported olive oil is available in any supermarket (like Safeway), and more obscure imports are available at smaller specialty grocers. Two excellent imports are Rao and Lucini, which are easily found, but there are a multitude out there with different levels of fruitiness and acidity, depending on what you’re using it for. For dipping bread, I like the fruitier oils.
The COR is excellent for this. I also cook with it, as I like the green olive taste.
I disagree. Extra Virgin Olive Oil will sometimes overpower the food that you are trying to cook. There is nothing at all wrong with Virgin Olive Oil, or simply Olive Oil, as long as it is of good quality and not the Sam’s Club Generic variety…
Ditto. Although I usually cheat and cut extra virgin with a neutral vegetable oil if I’m trying to make something a little lighter in flavor.
Anyhow, my brand suggestion is Frantoia. Peppery, fruity, just very “green” tasting. Lovely oil.
For a mass-market, easy-to-find olive oil, I swear by Pompeiian.
A lot of corksniffers will turn their nose up at it, because you can get it for a relatively small amount of money, but it’s really lovely.
It’s fruity and flavorful. It also has a peppery quality that goes very nicely with tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and (of course) fresh-ground pepper.
I’ve had really high-end extra virgin oils that I haven’t liked nearly as much.
I’ve been hearing that there are increasing problems in Italy, and possibly elsewhere, with mislabeling. People cut olive oil with cheaper vegetable oils, or outright substitute them, then label it “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” and make a bundle of money.
So, you could invest in a tony imported oil, only to get something of much lower quality than the generic brand at the local grocery. To my mind, the only sensible thing is to sample some oils and see what you like. I do like a strong oil with lots of sediment for bread dipping and such, but for general cooking I just use the cheapest EVOO from the supermarket. I do like to stick with extra virgin, because I don’t want oils extracted with solvents, and I’m not sure what the “rules” are about the other types of olive oil, but extra virgin should be simply cold pressed.
I like Da Vinci for a supermarket brand. It also got the highest marks for a supermarket brand from Cook’s Illustrated last year, as I recall.
I think virgin olive oil has something to do with an intact pimento . . .
For anything fancy I’d use one of the smaller local pressings like Kloovenberg, but my standard day-to-day oil is Borges extra-virgin, from Spain.
Cook’s Illustrated recently rated olive oils. One thing they noted is that Italian olive oils are among the worst. I’ve a Greek olive oil I love, and an organic one from Napa. Let’s see if my google-fu is superior today…
Napa Valley Natural Organic Olive Oil
The Greek one eludes my google-fu powers (I only identify it by the bottle, not the name).
For a recommendation, I’d ask an expert: Popeye 
This is what I was referring to in my previous post. People have become very ill eating the stuff being cut, and I too dislike the process for making non-EV oils.
As there is no accounting for taste, and as there is a lot of snobism going on in the olive-oil world, the best thing you can do is buy a few reasonably priced bottles (and a fancy one for contrast) and organize a blind tasting session. Don’t worry about having three bottles; olive oil keeps in the fridge and if you regularly cook with it, a bottle will be finished fast.
Hey, you know, there are lots of other things that can break the pimento! Maybe it was just a really athletic olive! :mad:
Note that the USA is not a member of the International Olive Oil Council, the organization that regulates the use of the traditional olive oil grades, including “extra virgin.” Anyone here can legally slap that description on any crummy oil.
I’ve always looked for “first cold press” on the label, indicating that heat wasn’t used to extract the oil, which apparently mars the flavor.