Olive Oil

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sassy

Assistant Cook
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
45
Has anyone tasted the Bariani brand of olive oil? The comments are extremely positive on their website. I usually use Olio Santo out of California but have an itch to try something new. What do you think?
 
All you can do is try it and decide for yourself. I agree with Bowlingshirt that the website will be biased. Here in the USA labels on Olive Oil mean nothing since there are basically no restrictions on the words they use. Price doesn't mean anything either.
 
I was once told when choosing olive oil, go for the greener coloured ones. I have done that over the years and never been disappointed.
 
Cook's Illustrated has a supermarket EVOO tasting in the current issue.

Highly recommended: Columela
Recommended: Lucini Italia, Colavita
Recommended with reservations: Bertolli, Filippo Berio, Goya, Pompeian, Botticelli
Not recommended: Carapelli, DaVinci, Star
 
I have to agree with bowlingshirt - no producer is going to post negative reviews of their product on their website.

And, like Jcas mentioned, I too have always heard that the darker the color the more flavorful. True, as McNerd mentioned, some do come in cans or dark colored glass where you can not see the color ... but many come in clear glass where you can see the color.

While "reviews" can give you some ideas about what other people think - the final decision is how does it taste to you? And, while everyone is looking at the big brands - sometimes a dark horse slips in.

About 4-5 years ago I was passing by a Cost Plus World Market that had just opened up about a year earlier and they were having a 50%-Off After-Christmas sale. Ok - I had to stop in and browse ... and picked up a liter bottle of their store brand EVOO for $2.50. That night I made some Baba Ganoush and used it ... the next day I went back and bought 8 more bottles. Been using it ever since. It was better than anything I had found on the supermarket shelves. It's not the best I ever had ... that distinction goes to a small (100 ml) bottle a patient's husband gave me that he had brought back from a small Greek island on a buying trip.

It's like wine - try a bottle and see if you like it.
 
It's like wine - try a bottle and see if you like it.
Also like wine, it depends on the harvest. This is not like picking a favorite soda that remains consistent bottle to bottle. You may like Colavita this year, but next year you might not like it because the olives that went into it were different than the year before.
 
How do you determine the color when most olive oil is sold in dark tinted colored bottles?

Most of the better oils here come in smaller bottles and most are clear, i have tried them, always chosen the greenest, which is cold pressed.

it is only when i find one i like that i then buy it in the bigger quantities like 4 litre cans .
 
It is my understanding that the color of olive oil is not an indicator of quality.

Green olive oils (the green is chlorophyl) are pressed from green (unripened) olives while yellow oils are pressed from ripe olives. In fact, olive oil producers can press some leaves in with the olives to give their oils a greenish tint.

The best advice is to taste it and buy what you like. Some olive oils will have a more pronounced olive taste. Some (green ones) will have grassy overtones. You may or may not like the greenish ones best.
 

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