Re the phytosterols. I actually don’t know. But I have noticed that oils made from varieties which are high in waxes tend to solidify more easily and sometimes they don’t like to fully melt either. But that is just an observation.

Come to think of it sterols might not be that important in this. Seed oils are much higher in sterols that EVOO (even though they are refined). Corn oil is the highest in this respect (from memory). I guess you could try to see if corn oil solidifies in the fridge! My guess is that it won’t or not much anyway.

RG

Incidentally, a lot of shows give best of class awards, and some give best, second and third best of class. However most have a minimum standard for these. Usually a gold medal is a requirement for the best of class being awarded, however in some regional shows with smaller numbers of entries, occassionally a silver medal is the minimum quality level for best of class. So for those who are interested in the best oil can look for the best of class.

RG

The paper I referred to was of course a wine paper, but it had some interesting information that was relevent to storing EVOO in bottles.

But as you asked… The purpose of the paper was to show that in some cases, the amount of browning of a white wine in a bottle of wine could be measured without opening it. Something pretty useful for QC. That abstract statement you referred to was stating that bottles of some colours like antique green absorb quite a bit at the wavelength (420nm) that are known to be good indicators of browning in white wines. Therefore for these coloured bottles it was not possible to reliably measure the amount of browning of the wine contained within them – well not using the traditional wavelength of 420nm.

Incidently 420nm is in the visible range of light so it isn’t that energetic as far as starting off rancidity reactions.

The last statement you refer to says… well if the glass interferes with our readings at 420nm we need to find another wavelength that could be an indicator of browning. What they found that the actual browning of the wine (as measured in a clear glass cuvette), correlated well with the 540 reading when in antique green. So by switching the measurement to 520 when measuring through antique green bottles did a good job of predicting white wine browning.

Lastly, you have to be in the trade to know exactly what the different colours are, but I’m sure any bottle rep would be happy to help if you were in the market for some – but just for now its that greeney turquoisey colour you often see used in expensive heavy wine bottles, and flint glass=clear glass.

RG

One question I have had for a while about olive oil tasting competitions is the nature of the medal awards. as a naïf, one might think that an oil that had been awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal at a competition would have been either the best, second-best, or third-best (respectively) in the show as a whole or at least in some category. But instead, I see that there are routinely multiple silver and bronze medal winners, and occasionally even more than one gold, within a category. On what basis is a medal category awarded, and why do the competitions use such a potentially-misleading nomenclature?

Well, at least your comment feature is getting used .

Great entry, as ever. I take it that you mean Skouroumounis et al, 2003? Do I correctly read the graph, and the abstract’s statement that “A420 of white wine in bottles of Antique Green or Amber glass could not be measured directly due to a strong absorbance of that wavelength by the glass” to indicate that these colors are nearly impervious to the critical range of UV? If so, shouldn’t these colors be the industry gold standard (lousy pun) — and how does a producer or a consumer know what “Antique Green” is?) Finally, what is the significance of the statement that “a strong correlation was established between measurement of A420 (cuvette) and A540 for white wine in Antique Green bottles and between A420 (cuvette) and either A540 or A600 for white wine in Amber bottles”?

Hm. Perhaps I should be asking the authors … Tell me to PO if appropriate . Thanks again!

Thanks for this! FWIW, I’ve never seen canola oil even begin to congeal in the fridge — perhaps because of its high content of omega-3 alpha linolenic acid, which is even more desaturated than linoleic.

Do phytosterols not play a role in the issue? Real EVOO should contain a significant amount,while refined OO would have been winterized to remove them — no? USDA says olive and hazelnut oils both have 120 mg/100 g, but I’m assuming that this is more likely refined than EVOO; and canola and soybean oil have zero.

We are confident that attentive consumers will begin to demand a more complete understanding of the value of the foods they purchase and eat.

Darro Griecom. Berkeley Olive Grove 1913

“If 10% of the milk I bought was off or 10% of the bread I purchased was stale Id have good reason to complain”

At the end of the day if 1% of the EVOO myself or my family purchase is not what the label says – I want action and NOW!!

What a limp response from the IOC…