Olive Oil

[Axel P]

Comparative Tasting Small02.jpg (87.92 KiB) Viewed 3829 times

I did a small comparative tasting with some known brands of portuguese olive oil. The result is rather not surprising as the olive oils are equal in quality of the Douro DOCs/ Ports that these producers made (I guess most of the readers do know what I mean).

Axel

[AHB]

Axel,

This is a subject of great interest to me and I will be very interested in learning the results of your comparative tasting. I have never tasted several olive oils side-by-side like this.

Personally, I think my favourite is the Vargellas olive oil, but the Vesuvio oil is also very light and fragrant. Noval I enjoy, but find it heavier and denser. I've never had the chance to try Carvalhas or Crasto.

Alex

[jdaw1]

Please do report back.

[RAYC]

Personally, I think my favourite is the Vargellas olive oil,

but which vintage....?!

[SCP-DFF]

Yes, I would love to know the results of this tasting. Olive oil is one of my favourite condiments. I pour it on nearly everything. It's delicious! Also, it's hard to find great quality. They say the acidity of the oil is most important to determine taste and overall quality. I don't buy olive oil that has a acidity above .3%. The best are under .1%. But those are very hard to find. Also very expensive.

Can we have an olive oil tasting and then enjoy some with yummy salad? We can serve port with the main meal! And with dessert!

-SCP-DFF (AKA Mrs Wiseman)

[PhilW]

yummy salad?

Surely there should be a penalty for such profanity? Although perhaps even more worryingly, ...

Olive oil is one of my favourite condiments. I pour it on nearly everything.

if there is a slight sheen to Julian at the next tasting...

[Axel P]

Since I am definitely no experts on olive oil I did many comparisons over the last couple of weeks. No ratings, just some impressions from me and many other guests that I did this with:

The least of the four was the Carvalhas with very little intensity and a rather one-dimensional tate.

Crasto is a elegant, very harmonic olive oil, whereas the Noval is a quite big and intense oil with a very long lasting aftertaste. The Vargellas is a good mixture of the last two, having quite some intensity, but not as big as the Noval.

Axel

[mosesbotbol]

Portal's olive oil is just out of this world.

[RonnieRoots]

For me, the best olive oil producer in the Douro is CARM. They have a long history of making great oil and press and bottle the oils from almost every quality quinta in the region. If you're in the region, a visit to their mill is well worth the effort.

[DaveRL]

We tasted the current batch of QdNoval extra virgin olive oil against EV oils that I happened to have in from Sainsbury, Filippo Berio and a Spanish oil that came free with a ham, Alhema D Queiles. The Noval is big, grassy, nice acidity, lovely long finish. The AdQ slighlty less grassy, but a little sweeter and fruitier and again a long finish. FB not so intense, grassy, quite short but nice finish which then turns unpleasantly acrid. The Sainsbury similar to the FB but with a much nastier acrid finish. QdN OOTN (Oil Of The Night), with the AdQ a close second. I was thoroughly discouraged from ever buying cheap Extra Virgin Olive Oil ever again - shouldn't cook with it with the lower smoke point (and horrid taste), and will only spoil a tomato (for those of us that venture to the dark side and dare to eat salad or vegetables). The Noval is a very lovely oil, and will be enjoyed.