Yes, a good extra virgin olive oil can be tasted and you can appreciate notable differences between them.
Olive oil has as many nuances as a good wine. Its quality can be assessed by colour, aroma, density, and, obviously, by flavour. And there are recognised awards in the sector that are given to oil mills that you will find in our shop and which are, obviously, awarded by expert tasters.
The taster: the expert in evaluating olive oil
A taster is someone who has sufficient training to evaluate a food product from a sensory point of view. A taster can guide us, but we must not lose sight of the fact that their suggestions are subjective, despite everything. For this reason, in professional tastings, a tasting panel is used not just to evaluate a single taster, but to objectify their evaluations.
A tasting is subjective no matter how you do it.
If professional tasters can't be objective, neither can we. You and your partner can taste your latest order from OrigenOliva and come to very different conclusions. Biologically, two individuals do not perceive sensations in the same way, nor do they experience them in the same way: it depends on previous experiences and their training.
However, a moderately experienced taster can distinguish the age of the oil, the varietals and even the mills just by the taste and aroma.
Before tasting an olive oil
1- Olive oil does not age, it loses properties.
Although olive oil tasting can be as sophisticated as wine tasting, they are not analogous products. Olive oil loses a lot of quality from one year to the next. Therefore, we will achieve optimal flavour and can appreciate more nuances if we choose an oil from a new harvest, around the months of November and December.
2- We will carry out the oil tasting in a transparent glass
Although oil is not consumed in a glass like wine, this container is ideal for oxygenating our oil and for being able to smell it in all its splendor. In addition, the transparency of the glass will allow us to better appreciate its color or possible impurities, if there are any. However, it is worth mentioning that many professional tastings are carried out in opaque containers that prevent the perception of color so that it does not influence the flavor.
3- Once the olive oil has been served and before tasting it…
Let's make sure that the glass is well covered by warming it slightly with our hands and making sure that the oil runs along its walls, swirling it around several times. This will allow the aroma to flow (just as it is necessary to oxygenate wine) and will allow us to assess the behaviour of the oil as a liquid.
If you want to know more about what to look for during a wine tasting, you can read this article.
