John: This stemmed from the end of last year, or the post-mortem, where it turned out that I’d known you for 31 years or so.
Adam: Me?
John: And you didn’t know anything about olive oil. You had just come back from Italy.
Adam: I’m still reeling from the fact that we’ve known each other for 31 years. You’re probably right—that’s the hard part about it.
John: Yes, and I will take my lickens. Because you had gone to Tuscany—
Adam: Yes.
John: —and brought back a bunch of olive oil. Then I told you a couple of things, and you were clueless about it. I have to assume, and I even considered making this a tip of the day, that most people don’t know much about olive oil.
Adam: That’s correct.
John: Or at least, generally speaking. Just a few basics—olive oil only keeps for two years max, and it has to be stored properly.
You’d say olive oil, like other oils, just gradually goes rancid. But the type of rancidity that occurs in olive oil—similar to butter, coffee beans, and anything with oil—is actually unhealthy. Olive oil is good for about two years. So when you buy it, always check the back of the bottle. It should have either a harvest date or a use-by date.
Adam: I had no idea.
John: Costco’s extra virgin olive oil—the Italian one in the green bottle, not the organic—usually has that information on the back. Their batches change about every four months, so you want to get the freshest one possible, ideally within a year of harvest. After two years, it starts to go bad. It’s not like wine; it doesn’t improve with age.
Adam: Got it.
John: Another thing people don’t realize is where most olive oil comes from. Spain produces the most—more than any other country by far. In fact, if you combined all other countries’ production, it would still be about the same as Spain’s. Most of Spain’s olive oil gets blended into other brands.
Adam: But Italian olive oil is considered the best, right?
John: That’s the perception. Tuscan olive oil is marketed as the best of the best. But personally, I find Sicilian olive oil to be really good. My favorites, though, come from Provence, France, and California. California makes some terrific olive oils, but their production is so small that it barely registers in global rankings. South American olive oils are also excellent.
The key is to be careful when buying Italian olive oil, which is the most promoted. Read the label carefully—it should say “Produced in Italy with Italian olives.” If it just says “Packed in Italy,” that means it could actually be Spanish olive oil—or worse, Greek.
Adam: Oh no, not Greek olive oil!
John: Yeah, Grecian olive oil is always considered greasy.
Adam: It does have a weird taste.
John: In Spain, you can find some fantastic olive oils, but most of them don’t get exported. They even have varietal olive oils, much like wine.
John: One last tip—what does “extra virgin” really mean?
Adam: Yeah, what is that exactly?
John: Extra virgin olive oil is extracted by purely mechanical means—no heat, no chemicals. When olives are mashed and pressed, the first pressing produces the highest quality oil. That’s your extra virgin.
Adam: First press, best press.
John: Exactly. It doesn’t cost much more than the cheaper stuff, but as they keep pressing to get more oil, they eventually resort to chemical extraction using hexane. Most cooking oils you buy are hexane-extracted.
Adam: You should ditch the vinegar book and write an olive oil book instead.
John: Maybe!
Adam: So now we have to give some of this away. We visited the Castello Verrazzano winery—named after the guy who discovered Hudson Bay. The same guy the Verrazzano Bridge is named after. Then he got eaten by cannibals in the Bahamas—That was a bad day for him, total day wrecker. But anyway, at the winery, they give you six full pours for a tasting, and before you know it, you’re hammered. Luckily, we had a driver. So, of course, I ordered some wine—just a couple of bottles—and then some vinegar, which they’re famous for, and olive oil. We got six bottles, but we’ll never use it all before it goes rancid.
John: That’s not true.
Adam: Six bottles?
John: I go through a big 1.5-liter bottle of Costco olive oil about every four months.
Adam: You’re guzzling the stuff.
John: I just use it regularly! The bottles you have are only 375ml, right?
Adam: Yeah, I’ll send you one.
John: Perfect. It’ll be gone in no time.