EVOO Awards

Best olive oil brands

During this time of coronavirus, we’re all cooking at home more than ever before. And, of course, one ingredient you should never be without is a bottle of one of the best olive oils.

Actually, for more than 3,000 years olive oils are a wildly versatile fat that elevates nearly every food. When it comes to the best olive oil brands today, EVOO (Extra Virgin olive oil) is king.

The highest standard for olive oil is made from pressed olives without using heat or chemicals and has no defects. Just liquid gold. Of course, not all extra virgin olive oils are created equal. Actually, there are many different bottles, different prices, different stamps of designation.

There are also different flavors and varietals, some are herbaceous, others peppery or grassy, or very light in taste.

Best Extra Virgin olive oil

How do you find it?

Harvest date

An olive oil should be used within 12 to 14 months of its harvest date (sometimes called a crush date). This date can be really hard to find, and many brands won’t have it, bad sign…:-( If you’re ordering online, ask the seller to confirm the harvest date before you complete your purchase.

Country of origin

The harvest season for northern hemisphere growing regions (like Spain) is October-November, and May for the southern hemisphere. Therefore, sometimes to blend olives from different countries together could be tough. Avoid those blends.

Avoid also refined oils, because sometimes companies blend extra-virgin olive oil with refined olive oil, which has been heavily processed. Actually, the process of refining uses heat, as well as chemical solvents that can strip out flavor and health benefits.

Recommended olive oil brands

Conservation

Remember HALT, which stands for heat, air, light and temperature, all of which will shorten your olive oil’s life. Also, don’t choose a product in a clear bottle (it should be tinted glass or a tin) and don’t store your oil near the stove. Finally, keep it tightly closed in a cool, dark spot like a pantry, and it should last about four to six months after you open it.

However, don’t buy too much, because if you go through it fast, a larger bottle is a better value, but if it will sit around, I recommend a smaller one. You’ll be able to enjoy these full-bodied flavors longer this way!

Aroma and taste

And taste it, even if It sounds odd to slurp it straight, it’s the best way to get its flavor. In this sense, remember that good olive oil should have an herbal taste, and pungent so it makes you cough. You might also taste hints of pepper, green banana, tomato or artichoke.

Olive oil is as essential to the kitchen as a saucepan or stove. Yet, while it’s always in front of us, we don’t always pay attention to what it can do, or not do. Still, a bad olive oil won’t turn your sauté sour, but a bit of good EVOO can be a genuine pleasure.

For the editors of the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Test Kitchen, there’s a million of considerations when shopping olive oil. After all, certain blends are better suited for particular dishes and uses than others. In fact, many of our experts have used multiple bottles of olive oil based on personal preferences. But for dressing a salad or a plate of pasta, most start with a bottle of extra virgin olive oil.

There are even more factors that can factor into picking up a bottle of extra virgin olive oil, though. With options at every price level, some olive oils are muted, better suited for pan sautés. However, others have a flavor profile that’s more robust, making toasted bread feel so much more luxe.

Best olive oil in the world

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition is the world’s largest and most prestigious olive oil contest. Actually, its annual listing of award winners is considered the authoritative guide to the year’s best extra virgin olive oils.

The best olive oils are blow-your-mind delicious and they elevate the tastes of our foods in ways we never imagined. So, hundreds of olive varieties offer countless pairing possibilities that chefs are only beginning to discover.

Fresh, high-quality extra virgin olive oil is one of the world’s healthiest foods. Also, olive oils crafted with care provide antioxidants and phenolic compounds that are proven to help reduce and prevent diseases.

Award-winning olive oil

Making great olive oil takes determination, skill and obsessive attention to details:

• Fruitiness: every good olive oil needs to have the aroma of fresh fruit. Olives are fruits, after all. The oil should smell fresh and fruity.
• Pungency: that cough-inducing sting on the throat that’s caused by the healthy phenolic compounds in fresh, high-quality olive oil.
• Complexity: exceptional olive oils send us on an olfactory and gustatory journey through a complex bouquet of pleasing sensations.
• Harmony: a pleasing balance in an oil sample’s quality characteristics distinguishes high-quality olive oils from the others.
• Bitterness: olives are mighty bitter straight off the tree. So any fresh, high-quality olive oil must be bitter, which we perceive on the tongue.
• Persistence: the qualities should linger for a while, giving the taster time to reflect on the fruity notes and complex subtleties.

Best olive oils

EVOO is the highest grade of Olive Oil and the fresh juice of the olive. It is a natural olive oil that has a free acidity, expressed as free oleic acid, of no more than 0.8 grams per 100 grams and no sensory defects.

Fake olive oil might taste greasy, rancid, flavorless, or just not pleasant. Good olive oil—real olive oil—should smell and taste green, bright, peppery, earthy, grassy, or any combination thereof. “If it tastes good, it’s probably good.

Tips de recognize a high quality olive oil

1. Search for an Extra Virgin olive oil
2. If the bottle is not dark, leave it
3. Look a what is in the label
4. Choose a Spanish Designation of Origin
5. Seek if it’s a cold extraction olive oil
6. That it comes from a single variety
7. With a distant best before date
8. That is not excessive expensive
9. Don’t judge it by the color
10. Try it and check for an itchiness in your throat

High quality olive oil

Olive oil is produced by grinding olives and extracting the oil by mechanical or chemical means. Green olives usually produce more bitter oil, and overripe olives can produce oil with fermentation defects, so for good extra virgin olive oil care is taken to make sure the olives are perfectly ripened.

1. Olive harvesting
2. Grind the olives so they are clean
3. Crushing the olives
4. Press the olive to extract the oil juice
5. Decanting olive oil
6. Quality control of olive oil
7. Packaging

Some scholars have argued that olive cultivation originated with the Ancient Egyptians. Olives have also been found in Egyptian tombs from 2,000 years BC. The earliest surviving olive oil amphorae date to 3,500 BC, though the production of olive oil is assumed to have started before 4,000 BC.

EXTRA virgin olive oil or EVOO is a grade above that. It means 1) it tastes good and there are no so called “defects”, and 2) it comes from good quality, fresh olives. This latter is mostly measured by something called “free fatty acid content”, or FFA.