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The volcanic soil turns our shoes sienna red as we walk up the hillside of Antonio Marulli’s olive grove in Francolise, Italy. The trees, heavy with fruit, grid the property and are the only monuments he has to his past. Although bombs destroyed his family home when the Allies advanced during World War II, the trees and the family’s deeply rooted tradition of olive oil making have survived.
Marulli is just one of thousands of olive oil producers in southern Italy, but it’s his attention to quality and detail that sets him apart from others in the Campania region, northwest of Naples. Marulli uses eco-friendly growing methods and drip irrigation to keep soil erosion down. Most farmers in the area grow only a few olive varieties, but Marulli grows seven different species. The variation gives his oil a distinct flavor—fruity with a subtle spiciness that goes well with fish, soups and cooked vegetables. Most olive growers in the area sell their oil to cooperatives or local villagers. “When I first started,” Marulli says, “my neighbors didn’t think something this serious could be done. But now they see many people from France and England coming here to buy my oil,” he says.
During October and November, Marulli and his staff handpick the olives just before they ripen. The fruit looks like immature plums, and each variety has its own harvesting schedule. In the evening, Fiat trucks loaded with small bins deliver the day’s harvest to a friend’s mill—the only one Marulli trusts. Following very strict guidelines, the oil is pressed right away. “Within three to four hours, the olives begin to ferment,” he says. “Even if you have a good mill, there’s nothing you can do if this happens.” The crushed olives release the scent of freshly cut grass and a gloriously colored oil, a cross between the Crayola crayon colors of “Electric Lime” and “Asparagus.”
Once the oil is returned to Marulli’s estate, he puts it through the scrutiny of an expert tasting panel, verifying that the oil meets organoleptic—that is, flavor—standards. Oil officiates, armed with only pencils and their sensitive palates, note the essence and aromas of the oil, along with bitterness and pungency—flavors you want in extra virgin olive oil. They also make sure the oil is free from negative qualities such as vinegar, mold or rancidity. Only after the oil passes these tests can it carry the estate’s label Monte della Torre.
quality counts
The creation of a superior extra virgin olive oil is similar to making wine. But for small-estate oil producers, creating quality oil is much more expensive than fermenting wine. Olive oil experts will tell you that man is the master of wine, but the flavor of extra virgin oil is at the mercy of the soil, the weather, the type of olives—and little else. Others say it’s in the hands of a greater power. “The production of extra virgin olive oil is an act of God,” says Andrea Sommaruga, a former accountant, who ran away from the fast life in Rome and now makes Panzanello organic olive oil in Panzano, Italy. “I believe in olive angels,” he says.
Small producers such as Sommaruga and Marulli need olive angels because, as they venture out into the world market, the competition is fierce. These small-estate oils stand label to label on store shelves with large multinational producers, and the price differences are vast. But if you tend to buy on price alone, think first. “It’s impossible to buy a good-quality extra virgin olive oil in a plastic bottle for $3,” Marulli says.
There are many inconsistencies in the olive oil marketplace, and an extremely low price should make you question the quality, and even the purity, of the oil. Depending on the region in Italy, labor and bottling expenses can cost as much as $8 to $10 per liter. At the store, premium extra virgin olive oils sell for $10 to $50 per liter, but a reasonable outlay is around $20.
Following the Appia Road a few hours south of Marulli’s estate, you can see why spending more for a quality oil is a better choice. Here, farmers wait for overripe olives to fall to the ground. The shriveled black olives are then vacuumed up with machines that look like street cleaners.
At these farms, efficiency takes precedence over quality. The oil is steamed, bleached with peroxide and manufactured into a bland, tasteless, refined olive oil called lampante oil. Later, it’s mixed with an undetermined amount of extra virgin or virgin oil (lower quality than the extra) and labeled as olive oil. And don’t be fooled by so-called light olive oil. Some manufacturers sell this as a specialty oil, but it’s nothing more than highly refined olive oil blended with small amounts of extra virgin oil.
When buying high-quality extra virgin olive oil, the oil’s acidity and freshness can make one brand taste better—and even be healthier—than another. Extra virgin olive oil must have acidity of 1 percent or less; some manufacturers now print the acidity levels on the label. Extra virgin olive oil is perishable, so by the time you buy oil without a birth date, it may well be past its life expectancy. Oil that is significantly older than 2 years past its bottling date will begin to turn rancid and lose its heart-healthy properties. “If the date and acidity levels aren’t listed on the bottle, ask your retailer, who should know,” says Albert Katz, president of the California Olive Oil Council (COOC). Exposure to light and consistent high heat can also turn great oil into a vile, thick mess, so look for oils in dark glass bottles or in boxes, and store them in a cool, dark place.
Not all producers of olive oils put themselves through the expense and trials of specialty labeling. If you want the ultimate guarantee of freshness and quality, look for markings such as a seal from California (COOC) or from HEPO, the Greek foreign trade board. Quality Spanish oils should carry the initialism DO (Denominacion de Origen) just as DOP (Denominazone Di Origine Protetta) denotes Italian oils. These quality assurances can help narrow your choices. Oils produced in the Chianti Classico region of Tuscany have a new label of distinction: a black rooster, also seen on wine labels. Not just hype, these are quality assurance guarantees that the oil has been put through rigorous standards for pressing and taste. The seal on California’s extra virgin olive oils means the growing and pressing methods, along with taste tests, meet the acceptance of the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) in Madrid, Katz says.
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The Italian and Spanish DOP and DO initialisms, respectively, let you know the oil is produced in a specific geographic region, pressed using the best methods and has no flavor defects. “DOP oils are serious oils because they give the consumer a good degree of safety and quality assurance,” says Sebastiano Castiglioni, owner of Querciabella, maker of organic olive oil and wine in Greve, Chianti. In his area, some producers go one step further by meeting specific growing and tasting parameters above what DOP oils require; these oils, monitored by the Chianti Classico Consorzio, feature the black rooster emblem on the bottle neck and embossed in the glass.
healthy habit
Before you decide to add one of these oil superstars to your kitchen pantry, try drinking a spoonful. It should taste fruity on the front of your tongue and feel spicy on the back of your throat. Nancy Radke, cookbook author and Director of the US Information Office for Parmigiano-Reggiano, says, “If green had a flavor, this would be it.” Without this kick, the oil isn’t as fresh and healthy as it could be. “If the oil is too sweet,” Castiglioni says, “there’s something wrong with it.”
Researchers now know that it’s the bite in the back of your throat that means the oil is full of antioxidants and polyphenols that help keep your body healthy. An abundance of studies show that myriad chemical components and fatty acids in extra virgin olive oil not only balance good and bad cholesterol levels but also serve up a powerhouse of antioxidants to help ward off some cancers.
Extra virgin olive oil has a large selection of antioxidants in the form of polyphenols—some so unique that they aren’t found in any other edible fruit or vegetable. “Polyphenols occur a lot in nature,” says Wayne Emmons, PhD, who is Laboratory Director at ITS Caleb Brett in Metairie, Louisiana, “but in olives, there are substances called oleuropein, the bitter component of the olives, which are 10 times higher in extra virgin olive oil than refined olive oil.” After studying oils for more than 40 years, Emmons is convinced that extra virgin olive oil is the “healthiest oil we can consume.”
Fatty acids are another component that makes olive oil a superior health food. Extra virgin olive oil is a monounsaturated fat, high in omega-3 fatty acids (linolenic acid), which are also found in flaxseed and fresh fish. The National School of Nutrition in Perugia, Italy, has been working with olive growers to produce oil that has the highest possible omega-3 fatty acid levels, says Professor Gianfrancesco Montedoro, coordinator of the university’s scientific studies.
taste test
As with wine, you should check the label for the origin of the olive oil. Extra virgin olive oils produced from single regions have flavors unique to their geographical areas. “Consumers need to buy extra virgin olive oil based on territory, not price, to get the flavor they want,” Montedoro says. In general, warmer areas of the Mediterranean produce a medium to lighter oil, good for fish and soups.
Olive oils made in cooler climates, such as Tuscany, have a peppery, greener flavor—good for meats, salads and most vegetables. Admittedly, you may not want to use superior extra virgin olive oils for all your cooking. Top-grade extra virgin olive oils are perfect for finishing sauces, drizzling on salads or vegetables and even slathering on meat, chicken or fish. Mass-produced extra virgin oil and virgin olive oils are second in flavor, but don’t expect to taste the same nuances you’ll find with regionally produced extra virgin olive oil.
Organic extra virgin olive oils are something else to consider. Many producers in northern Italy don’t use chemicals on their olives, but they aren’t certified organic.
Conversely, olives grown in hot climates are prone to olive flies, and growers use pesticides to rid their groves of these destructive pests. So, if you want absolute assurance, look for organic labeling. “There aren’t many of us out there,” says Dale Kambayashi, spokesman for distributor Rapunzel, which recently released an organic Spanish extra virgin oil. “Most organic oils haven’t focused on the culinary aspect, but now you can buy some that have the full extra virgin flavor,” he says.
As the market for olive oil grows in the United States, so will the oil’s quality. But it’s up to the consumer to demand better oil, Katz says. As Marulli pours his iridescent oil onto a plate, he says, “The results don’t come by chance—it takes a lot of hard work and investment, but most of all, a passion to create an oil with a high standard.”
i’m a crook - buyer beware: olive oil industry fraught with fraud
My grandmother, who was born in the mountains above Olympia, Greece, used to say that people from the Mediterranean had olive oil in their veins. In theory, she wasn’t wrong; the Mediterranean diet derives as much as one-third of its calories from olive oil.
My grandmother bought her olive oil straight from the source—her local mill—and she had only two choices: virgin oil for cooking and refined oil for lighting lamps. We Yanks, on the other hand, are relegated to our local grocery store where we must decide between extra virgin, virgin, pure, light and pomace olive oil. In addition, we have to be concerned about the oil’s freshness and whether the marketing messages and health claims featured on the bottle are true. Make the wrong decision, and a good intention becomes a bad choice—not just for your palate and pocketbook, but also for your health.
If you want the healthiest extra virgin olive oil, look beyond labels and logos, and ignore the hype for “cold-pressed” types of oil. Instead, read the fine print, and check the bottling date, acidity level and production region. This assures you that you get what you pay for.
point of origin
The majority of the world’s olive oil flows through Italian ports, making that country the unofficial “police” for most of the oil exported to America. At the docks in Italy, thousands of producers, each with different standards, fight to gain a fraction of the market, which grows in the United States by some 20 percent each year.
Experts say that, as olive oil production has expanded from a cottage industry to a global giant, the rules and regulations haven’t kept pace. For one, there aren’t enough acceptable words to describe the difference between premium extra virgin olive oil and other extra virgin olive oils.
“The mere fact that the oil says ‘extra virgin’ doesn’t mean anything,” says Sebastiano Castiglioni, owner of Querciabella, maker of organic olive oil and wine in Greve, Chianti. He believes that all Italian, high-quality extra virgin oils should have a visible stamp of approval to help the consumer. “DOP (Denominazone Di Origine Protetta) is the only assurance of quality” he says, referring to the Italian label for regional designation and quality assurance.
Truth-in-labeling laws in the olive oil industry are loose at best. For instance, the phrase “cold-pressed” is obsolete, but manufacturers continue to use the term. “Anyone can put anything he or she wants on a label—cold-pressed, handpicked, picked at midnight—and there’s no system to verify the accuracy of these statements,” Nicola Ruggiero, president of Unaprol, an Italian olive oil association, told The Report, a 60-Minutes–type program produced by the Italian television station, RAI.
When most Americans think of olive oil, they picture tanned Tuscan laborers handpicking olives. Until recently, producers took advantage of this misconception and labeled their products as “Made in Italy” or “Produced in Italy.” However, with Spain and Turkey now vying for the title of the world’s primary olive oil supplier, most of these claims are no longer true.
In 1998, the New York law firm Rabin and Peckel, LLP, took on the olive oil labeling misnomer and filed a class action suit in the New York Supreme Court against Unilever, the English-Dutch manufacturer of Bertolli olive oil. The firm argued that Bertolli’s labels, which read “Imported from Italy,” did not meet full disclosure laws because, even though the oil had passed through Italian ports, most of it had originated in Tunisia, Turkey, Spain or Greece. “Bertolli olive oil is imported from Italy, but contains no measurable quantity of Italian oil,” according to court documents.
Marvin Frank, legal counsel for the case, said that consumers have the right to know if they’re buying 100 percent Italian olive oil. The case was settled out of court in 2001, but resulted in changes requiring all imported olive oils, not just Bertolli, to indicate the oils’ country of origin.
impure virgin oil
Regardless of where the olive oil originated, consumers also need to pay attention to its purity. Research shows that blended oils—although not harmful and certainly healthier than seed oils—may meet technical and taste standards, but they don’t contain the full health benefits of pure olive oils. Oils pressed from fully ripe olives, olives grown in poor soil and those grown in hot climates have higher saturated fat levels and lower polyphenol concentrations than oils from unripe olives and cooler climates, according to the National School of Nutrition in Perugia, Italy.
For the past decade, many in the food world have hinted that the olive oil industry is fraught with fraud and deception. But because olive oil production was once a business front for the Italian Mafia, these comments were written off as culinary gossip. In the late 1990s, some of the accusations gained credibility when several companies were caught selling seed oil as olive oil. As a result, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and laboratory scientists worked to create measures to prevent fraud.
Problem solved? Yes, say some, but others conclude that the industry still has slick merchants trading in tainted products—their misdeeds bordering on the line between unethical and illegal. “The types of fraud have been multiple and numerous,” Domenico Seccia, the public minister in Bari, Italy, told The Report. Technology and maritime document fraud, he says, are the methods of choice for unethical olive oil producers.
In the past, stone presses inefficiently coaxed oil from thick olive paste. Today, high-tech machinery extracts the oil in minutes. This new technology helps unethical producers blend just the right amount of extra virgin olive oil with refined oil to create a product that looks and tastes like pure extra virgin olive oil. Laboratory-created oils even meet the low acidity levels required for extra virgin olive oil. “Mixing non-olive oil with olive oil, pomace (chemically refined) oil with virgin oil and refined oil with virgin oil is all legal as long as it’s indicated on the label,” says Paul Vossen, olive oil expert at the University of California Extension office in Davis, California. “The real problem is that manipulated oils are sometimes sold for more money and labeled as extra virgin or virgin oils when they’re not.”
Mention the humble hazelnut to an olive oil fraud expert, and you’ll get an earful. The chemical structure of hazelnut oil is remarkably similar to extra virgin olive oil, making it the perfect additive for unethical producers. So much so that at levels of 10 percent or less adulteration, even the best scientists are unable to detect hazelnut oil’s presence.
“We really don’t have any good chemical handles yet. It’s difficult to tell,” says Wayne Emmons, Laboratory Director of ITS Caleb Brett in Metairie, Louisiana. “Hazelnut oil and olive oil have high oleic levels,” Emmons says, “which makes it difficult to detect the difference. But if you added just 1 percent canola oil to olive oil, I could tell right away.”
Blended oils of hazelnut and olive oil won’t hurt you, but they also won’t give you the full health benefits of olive oil—or your money’s worth.
With each new anti-fraud test, opportunistic olive oil importers discover new ways to get around the rule. “The official methods of analysis aren’t able to completely detect fraud,” Giovanni Lo Piparo, Italy’s Inspector of Fraud, told The Report. The International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) in Madrid offers a reward to anyone who can detect hazelnut adulteration. The IOOC and the European Union (EU) have also formed a counter-measure group called the MEDEO Project to develop scientific methods that detect smaller levels of hazelnut oil.
When hazelnut adulteration is combined with document fraud, detection problems are doubly difficult. The latest trick is to ship hazelnut-adulterated oils to several different EU countries before reaching Italy.
At each port, false paperwork is verified as authentic, thus reducing the chances that the oil will be searched and tested at its final destination in Italy.
The Middle Eastern press recently cited LIO—Turkey’s largest producer of olive oil and the world’s largest producer of hazelnut oil—and one of its subsidiaries for selling blended hazelnut and olive oil as pure olive oil to Argentina and Brazil.
In December 1999, the company exported 248 tons of blended oil—49 percent refined olive oil and 51 percent hazelnut oil.
The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that the buyer of the oils, Pearman Associates—also owned by the president of LIO—destroyed customs documents in transit and wrote new ones, claiming the oil was refined olive oil. The oil was distributed in Argentina and Brazil and was later recalled when the adulteration scam was discovered.
In August 2002, officials at LIO denied the accusations to the Istanbul Stock Market, according to the Middle Eastern newspaper Sabah. As a result of the scandal, the president of LIO resigned as president of the Turkish Olive Oil Association and Turkey’s Foreign Trade Undersecretary banned the export of mixed oils.
According to the Turkish media, LIO plans to introduce pure olive oil to 1,700 stores in the United States this year.
No one is certain that the fraud found in foreign ports will occur in the United States. But since all but 1 percent of olive oil consumed in America is imported, the possibility exists—and keeps North American port officials busy. In January 2002, for instance, the FDA rejected oil imported from Lebanon, Tunisia and Turkey due to unapproved additives and contamination.
In the past five years, officials in North America have caught some two dozen companies selling blended oils as pure olive oil to consumers and restaurants. The North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) in Neptune, New Jersey, monitors its members and periodically pulls oil from store shelves to test it. “Consumers don’t need to worry,” says Bob Bauer, president of the association.
Ultimately, it’s up to consumers to vote with their wallets and to show unethical producers that they won’t pay for falsely advertised products. That’s the case for professional olive oil buyers, as well. One distributor that the NAOOA caught for selling adulterated oil to a restaurant said in his defense, “I’m a crook, but not in a wrongful way. My customers knew from the lower price that I wasn’t selling them 100 percent olive oil.”
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