Written by the people who buy the oil
Olive Oil Guide
Everything we ask of a bottle before we list it, explained in the order it matters: harvest date first, then origin and cultivar, then acidity, polyphenols and storage. Each guide answers its question in the first paragraph and shows its working underneath.
Guides
How to Choose Extra Virgin Olive Oil
A practical method for choosing extra virgin olive oil in the US: read the harvest date first, then origin, cultivar, packaging and price per fluid ounce.
Olive Oil Harvest Date Explained
What an olive oil harvest date means, how it differs from a best-before date, and how to use it to buy fresher extra virgin olive oil in the US.
How to Store Olive Oil
How to store olive oil at home: keep it cool, dark and closed, away from the stove, and finish an opened 500 ml bottle within about three months.
Olive Oil Acidity Explained
What free acidity means in olive oil, why 0.8% is the extra virgin limit, and why a low number alone does not make an oil taste good.
Olive Oil Polyphenols Explained
What olive oil polyphenols are, what drives the number, how they taste, and how to read a measured mg/kg figure on a bottle.
Cold Pressed vs Cold Extracted Olive Oil
The difference between cold pressed and cold extracted olive oil, what the 27°C limit means, and why neither phrase guarantees quality on its own.
How to Taste Olive Oil
A step-by-step olive oil tasting method: warm, smell, sip, strip and swallow. Learn to identify fruitiness, bitterness, pungency and common defects.
Olive Oil Flavor Profiles by Cultivar
How cultivar shapes olive oil flavor: Picual, Koroneiki, Coratina, Arbequina, Taggiasca and more, with intensity, typical notes and best uses.
How to Tell If Olive Oil Is Fresh
Five checks that tell you whether an olive oil is still fresh: harvest date, aroma, throat catch, packaging and how the bottle has been stored.
Shop by what you have just learned
The harvest letter
Early access to each new harvest, forty-eight hours before release
One letter a month: tasting notes from our own panel, the estates we are visiting, and first refusal on limited single-tank releases.
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