Describing Olive Oil
admin | March 2, 2010Just a little something to help you describe the flavour of extra virgin olive oil. Technically if the oil has any of the defect characters listed in the brown part of the table then it shouldn’t be called an extra virgin olive oil. But unfortunately some oils that are labelled as extra virgin grade have these undesirable characters.
Some of the descriptors might seem a bit strange, but most of the weird terms apply to lesser known varieties. For example, if you are a fan of Tuscan or Californian EVOO then you almost certainly would have not experienced the unusual (yet not unpleasant) flavour of crushed ants that is typical of the variety Nevadillo Blanco when it is picked early, or the guava like flavours which are sometimes seen in extra virgin olive oils made from the Spanish variety Picual when it is picked late in the season.
If you are interested in a snazzy list of olive oil tasting terms then you may wish to check out my olive oil tasting wheel at www.aromadictionary.com/oliveoilwheel.html
You can obtain a pdf version of this at: www.aromadictionary.com/oliveoildescriptorlist.pdf
Richard Gawel
Nice and easy to read, not sure that cats pee or crushed ants are really positive!
Hi Carol – When puting the list together I was careful not to put too much personal opinion into it. Some producers think that any EVOO that doesn’t taste like theirs is necessarily wrong. For example, in some parts of Spain where ripe Picual is commonplace, the locals think the typical ripe Picual taste is just fine and they like using it, but take these oils to some parts of Italy and they would be deemed sub-standard. It works the other way too! So in the interests of balance, if the character wasn’t officially recognised as a defect (based on International Olive Council rules), and it could logically be attributed to the olive (rather than poor processing or storage), then I put it in the ‘positive’ column. But I’ll leave it up to people to make up their own mind as to how positive it is for them. Richard.
So tell me, Richard (and I am serious about this): what kind of ants? I don’t have a lot of experience with the Formica genus, but I seem to remember someone telling me they smell pretty intense…. Is that the ant in question?
Btw, reading your blog for the first time. Utterly brilliant, not surprisingly, and just what the OO world needs. Thank you!
Hi Alexandra
Thanks for the compliment. But to the ants… You’ve got me thinking about the fact that there are thousands of different types of ants out there. But the ones I was thinking of were a type of small black ant which gives off a distinct scent of formic acid when squished. I’m not sure if you have similar types in Petaluma. Squash a few and get back to me with your thoughts.
Richard