Tasting - Spot the differences - Extra virgin olive oil

Not looking for the best – but for your taste

There is no single flavour profile that makes one good olive oil best for everyone. Some people love a soft, rounded oil with hardly any bitterness. Others actively look for green aromas, bitterness and that characteristic peppery sensation at the back of the throat.

That is why this set is not a competition between good and better. Both are excellent Extra Virgin olive oils. We brought them together precisely because they demonstrate how enormously broad the flavour spectrum of genuine olive oil can be. Taste them side by side and the difference becomes immediately clear.

Fontfleurie from Catalonia is made for anyone who appreciates elegance and softness. The oil is fruity and refined, yet virtually not bitter and only very subtly peppery. This makes it an exceptionally approachable Extra Virgin olive oil, even for people who normally find assertive green olive oils too intense.

In our Olive Oil Guide, Fontfleurie scores just 1 for bitterness and 2 for pepperiness, while softness receives the maximum score of 10. That makes it almost the ideal benchmark for the gentle side of the flavour spectrum.

For the opposite extreme, we selected the Limited Edition from Vassilakis Estate in Crete. This premium Extra Virgin olive oil is made from Koroneiki grown in the family’s own olive groves and has much more green tension and intensity. Aromatic, vibrant, clearly bitter and with a powerful peppery finish that can be felt at the back of the throat.

On the same scale we use for Fontfleurie, this Vassilakis sits almost at the opposite end: 2 for softness, 8 for bitterness and 9 for pepperiness. The current oil also lists an acidity of approximately 0.2% and around 1413 mg/kg of polyphenols. It is precisely this enormous contrast that makes the two so educational to taste side by side.

Pour a small amount of each oil into a separate tasting glass or dish. Start with Fontfleurie. Smell it first, then take a small sip and spread the oil around your mouth. Pay particular attention to its softness and to how little bitterness and pepperiness you experience.

Then taste the Vassilakis Estate. Notice the green aromas, the bitterness and especially what happens a few seconds later at the back of your throat. That light to pronounced tingling or peppery sensation is characteristic of many powerful, green-harvested Extra Virgin olive oils.

And then comes the most important question: which one do you prefer? There is no right or wrong answer. That is exactly why we created this set.

This is why tasting olive oil is so interesting

Talking simply about “olive oil flavour” hardly does Extra Virgin olive oil justice. Just like wine, enormous differences arise from olive variety, harvest timing, ripeness, climate, soil and production method. With only two bottles, this tasting makes those differences immediately apparent. Afterwards, you may never look at olive oil quite the same way again.