The best Italian olive oil that I've had so far that I can remember the name of is this brand from Palermo. It's good enough for me to use it for raw tasting rather than cooking most of the time. What olive oil reigons and/or makers do y'all find to be the best tasting?
by Iamthepizzagod
8 Comments
Most people in Italy buy from small producers if they can and care, or cheap brands if they can’t or don’t care. Good quality branded oil is a relatively small niche in Italy.
That being said, I’m Sicilian and found myself in a position to buy the brand you depict, and in many variations, I must say it’s pretty good and I’d buy it again.
Since Sicilian oils tend to be strong in flavour, another kind that I’d recommend you try is Ligurian olive oils. They are known to be delicate, in a good way, so if you like having different EVOOs ready they are a nice complement. I don’t have a brand to recommend in this case.
Good ideas include
* have one good supermarket oil for cooking
* have one or two good olive oils for finish / garnish
* try to use all up within a year before it gets bad
* best by dates are useless, while harvest dates matter (over 18 months is probably bad)
I will order from here: https://aziendaagricolafratellilicari.it/
I am in MX and I bought a couple italian oils here, they don’t taste like in italy, the taste doesn’t seem to be even olive 🥺 is that common ? As I bought it from Walmart I thought should be original but it didn’t seem like that because it doesn’t “pizzica”.
Cosa consigliate di fare?
I’m buying olive oil from my friend’s farm in Campania
Asaro, I really like their olio nuovo. But the unfiltered is great too for the rest of the year.
Azienda Agricola La Rocca, Montevago (AG)
Don’t want to brag, a friend just gifted me a bottle of freshly (as in “last weekend”) pressed oil from her dad’s olive trees on the hills directly south of Florence and there just are no words – I would be surprised any commercial oil can compete.
OTOH yesterday I was having lunch with my gf and said friend, and the waiter brought on the table a bottle of some other ‘branded’ fresh oil from a small producer apparently (“olio nuovo” – the one made with this fall’s harvest) and I tasted a few drops on a tiny piece of bread and it was so pungent it felt like gargling battery acid in the back of my throat so yes, in general small producers are your best bet but even there it’s kind of a crapshoot.
Another friend’s rule of thumb (she’s a trained oil taster) is: good oil cannot cost less than € 20 to €25 per litre. Anything less, and someone somewhere is cutting corners.