A Beginner’s Guide to Spanish Olive Oil
Picture this:
You’re standing in the middle of an olive grove. The gnarled and knotted trunks of the trees stand all around you, sprouted from the mottled brown earth. You can smell wildflowers, and hear the faint buzz of bees.
Now: which country are you in?
Chances are, you said Italy. And that’s only fair—popular opinion says that the best olive oils in the world come from Italy, and your imagination is ready to deliver images of rolling plains dotted with olive trees and vineyards.
But–if you can–forget about Italy, and Greece, and all of the other Mediterranean places your mind might take you, bar one.
Because Spain is the dominion of olive oil. It’s the crown jewel in the oily crown, and it’s definitely where you should be going for your olive oil. Out of the world’s 10 best olive oils from 2018, eight came from Spain!
Keep reading to learn what makes Spanish olive oil so special, and why you need to try it!
Contents
Spanish Olive Oil: 3,000 Years of History
Spanish olive oil goes way back. Waaaaaaaay back. Like, 3,000 years back.
Back then, the Phoenicians were the first people to introduce the olive tree to Spain. They brought it all the way from their homeland in modern-day Lebanon, which must have been a fair bit of effort. I guess Customs was less strict back then.
Fast forward a few centuries, and you’ve got another group of Mediterranean diet aficionados landing in Spain.
The Romans, Olive Oil, and Rotting Fish
The Romans loved Spain. With so much sun and fertile land, you can grow anything here. Roman Spain was a major producer of bulk wine, garum (a Roman sauce made from rotting fish—I’m so glad this didn’t survive the passage of time), and, you guessed it; olive oil.
The oil of Hispania (the Roman name for Spanish lands) was pretty well regarded across the empire. In fact, it was so highly sought after that there’s even evidence of counterfeit Spanish olive oil production, and the introduction of a Roman police force specifically tasked with stopping it.
This trend has continued, with Italy even today having a similar oily police squad. The Romans were experts in foreshadowing.
Fast forward a few more centuries, and Spain fell under the control of another olive oil-loving group of people: the Moors.
A very Moorish food
The Moors (an Arabic culture from the Middle East and North Africa) gave Spain a lot. Aside from architectural marvels like the Alhambra, and a cure for the plague, they also brought some great food.
Thank the Moors next time you have paella, espinacas con garbanzos, turrón, or anything else with saffron, rice, almonds, artichokes, cumin, asparagus, spinach… the list goes on.
Being masters of science, the Moors also brought new irrigation technologies to the south of Spain. They revolutionised olive oil production, turning the land into the olive oil giant that it is today.
It’s such a significant advance that the Spanish word for olive oil,
Ever since the Moors, Spain has been the world’s largest producer of olive oil.
How Much Olive Oil Does Spain Make?
Take a look at this:
Crazy, right?
In the most recent harvest (usually occurring in October each year), Spain produced 1,598,900 tonnes of oil.
(For comparison, the USA made 16,000 tonnes.)
That means Spain made 51% of the entire world’s olive oil.
Just think about that for a second. Fifty-one per cent. That’s from a country 19 times smaller than the USA. This country:
And it still has to fit in 47 million people, plus a lot of Iberian pigs.
So, where does it all come from?
Where Does Spanish Olive Oil Come From?
Where can you grow 1,598,900-tonnes-of-oil worth of olive trees?
It turns out, pretty much anywhere! Olive oil is produced all across the southern, central, and eastern regions of Spain. From Barcelona to Seville, you’re going to find these trees wherever you go.
But Andalucia takes the cake.
The most southern region of Spain produces 75% of the country’s olive oil. This makes so much sense to me—it explains all those long journeys from Seville where all you see is olive trees for miles and miles.
Remember that fact about Spain producing 8/10 of the world’s best olive oils? Well, out of those eight, all of them came from Andalucia.
And even within this big region, there’s one small province that does most of the heavy lifting. Jaén, north of Granada, produces as much olive oil as the entire country of Italy.
Seriously, why would anyone look past Andalucian olive oil?
Spain’s Italian Olive Oil
So where does all this oil go? Well, a lot of it stays in Spain. Spaniards eat a hell of a lot of liquid gold each year, ranking as #2 in the list of top consumers worldwide.
The average Spaniard consumed roughly 12 litres of olive oil last year—just over 3 gallons! (The average American has way less, at just 1 litre.)
You are what you eat, so I guess this explains their olive complexion.
So that accounts for about a third of Spain’s production. Where’s the rest?! Well, it leaves the country, but you might be surprised by where it winds up.
Italy.
My first thought when I saw this was: “man, the USA loves olive oil”. My second thought? “Why the hell does Italy need all that extra oil?”
The world’s second-biggest producer of olive oil imports a lot. Almost a third as much as it makes itself.
So the question I had was this:
If Italy makes enough oil for Italians, why do they need more?
It turns out that Italy ends up importing a lot of oil from Spain, Greece, and beyond the Mediterranean. Why? To blend and bottle in Italy, and then sell to the rest of the world as Italian Olive Oil. Totally legal, but totally dodgy.
So next time you want to buy olive oil, cut out the middle man and just buy Spanish oil from a Spaniard! But what should you look for?
“Extra Virgin”: More than a highschool insult
“Extra Virgin” may be the biggest marketing blunder of the last 1,000 years.
Seriously, could they have picked a more obscure way of describing a food? The phrase itself seems redundant: how can something be extra virgin?
It’s like being half pregnant. No one is going to believe you.
So, what exactly is extra virgin olive oil?
Understanding Olive Oil Labels: Virgin Oils
There are 4 types of virgin olive oil: extra virgin, virgin, ordinary virgin (my nickname in high school), and lampante.
For an oil to be any of the virgin grades, it must be naturally harvested and processed. Only mechanical means can be used to extract the oil (read: a big press), and you better not mix in any other type of oil, be it from lower quality olives or other plants!
After that, it gets more specific:
- Extra virgin: Less than 0.8% free fatty acidity, (FFA) and passes a taste test to establish that it’s free from flaws.
- Virgin: Less than 2% FFA, and with no more than 1 flavour flaw, as assessed by a taste test.
- Ordinary Virgin: Less than 3.3% FFA. Normally, this is sold wholesale to corporations.
- Lampante: Less than 3.3% FFA, and with more than 1 taste flaw. By law, it must be refined before it can be consumed.
This brings us to the murky world of refined olive oils.
Understanding Olive Oil Labels: Refined Oils
Imagine you’re a producer of olive oil and you find yourself with a batch of lampante. If you want to sell it to the public, there’s only one thing you can do: refine it.
The process of refining olive oil is pretty bleak. It involves a series of chemical processes designed to make the oil completely colourless, odourless, and tasteless. Yummy.
On the plus side, all of the flaws in the original oil are removed. But so are any good flavours, and almost all of the health benefits that the oil once had.
If you’re the person meant to be selling it, what can you do? No one wants to buy this flavourless refined oil. So, you mix in a little bit of extra virgin oil to give some taste and aroma.
You can’t call this Frankenstein’s monster of olive oil extra virgin, so you call it “Refined Olive Oil”, or just “Olive Oil”. And you’re lucky: to the normal consumer, “refined” sounds just as good as “extra virgin”!
Understanding Olive Oil Labels: The Fake Stuff
Once you’ve figured this out, you realise something else. Extra virgin olive oil is expensive, and you’re only using a little bit to add flavour to your refined oil.
So, wouldn’t it be way cheaper to just tamper with your refined oil to make it taste like
Even better, if you can make it taste like extra virgin, why not label it as extra virgin olive oil? You can make a lot more money that way!
In 2017, a group of Mafia-linked criminals were arrested for doing just this. They made a huge profit in the process, and it’s not the first time it’s happened.
Just like the Romans, the modern world also has a problem tackling olive oil fraud. As awful as that is, I can’t help but think there’s something romantic about that!
Unfortunately, as a consumer, it means you need to be careful about what you buy. One study recently found that 69% of supermarket “extra virgin olive oils” were in fact lampante.
So, how do you choose a good Spanish olive oil?
How to Choose Spanish Olive Oil
With all of these different types of oil, and so much fraud, how do you pick the right Spanish olive oil for you?
In general, always buy extra virgin. This is the highest quality around, but it’s also the type with the most health benefits and greatest flavour. Beyond that, here are my helpful tips for buying Spanish olive oil:
- Taste before you buy. Like good wine, it’s best to try-before-you-buy. There are so many different olive oil varieties (Spain has more than 200 types of olive!), make sure you find an oil that tastes good to you.
- Buy fresh. Olive oil doesn’t last, nor does it get better with time. I’ll never forget the time I bought a friend a bottle of olive oil, only to find she hadn’t opened it the next year; she was saving it for a ‘special occasion’, but it had gotten so old that it was ruined. Don’t be like my friend: buy the most recent year’s harvest, and use it ASAP.
- Buy from the producer. If you can’t buy directly from the mill or the co-op, buy the next best thing. Find a seller who buys directly from those places themselves. The chances of the oil being tampered with along the way are much slimmer!
- Be wary of the label. Most “Italian olive oil” is not grown in Italy. Be careful of olive oil labels with Italian flags, or picturesque scenes of the Tuscan countryside. Look for the stamp of the geographic appellation that the oil comes from, either a D.O.P. or I.G.P. (Spain) or P.D.O. and P.G.I. (Italian).
- Bargain prices are dangerous. It’s almost impossible to sell an extra virgin olive oil for less than $10USD per litre (and make a profit!). Low prices are appealing, but it might be the sign of a counterfeit olive oil.
Read More
I learnt a lot about this topic from Tom Mueller’s excellent book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil. Visit his website, or purchase the book here.
Stay up to date on the world of olive oil with the Olive Oil Times.
If you’re visiting Spain, check out my list of the best places to buy olive oil in Seville.