Best olive oil is Greek. Italian or Spanish ones are nowhere near the quality of Greek. In Greece more than 80% of total production is extra virgin while in Italy the percentage is less than 40% and in Spain 20%. Italians buy bulk olive oil from Greece and they mix it with their own oils to raise the quality. There are small brands that offer high quality extra virgin oil and I guess you could look some of them at your local super market or grocery store. If you want top quality you should look for small privately owned brands rather than big companies, at least for Greek oil. A few well known and trusted producers are Gaea [1], Papadimitriou [2], WEP [3], Eleia [4], Moria Elea Deluce [5], Maleas [6].
Seconding this. It also tastes somewhat different, which is a matter of preference admittedly. I personally love the typical flavor of oil from Kalamata olives, which makes up a large part of the Greek-labeled production (i.e. bottled as Greek olive oil, rather than exported for blending).
Greek marketing and distribution has been poor, however, and very slowly improving. The traditional place to buy it in the U.S. has been in 5-liter tins at Mediterranean grocery stores catering to immigrants (depending on the region, these might be "Greek", "Lebanese", "Turkish", or "Arab" supermarkets). These are a great deal, especially if you cook with it, but off the radar of most regular shoppers. Lately I have been seeing it in smaller bottles in normal grocery stores more often. Trader Joe's now has a house brand of 100% Greek Kalamata olive oil, which they buy in bulk and bottle, and is very good for the price.
This is one thing the Italians got way out front of the Greeks on. Both Italians and Greeks at home will not typically buy small glass bottles of olive oil; the 5-L tin is the typical container. Partly that's because it's used in cooking, not just to sprinkle on salads or pasta. Especially in Greece and southern Italy, it's the main cooking fat, since butter, lard, canola oil, sunflower-seed oil, etc. are not widely used. But Italians realized that selling smaller bottles to the boutique export market was a good business, while Greeks only realized later that there was this market for premium-priced oil in a 500-mL bottle, aimed at people who use it for smaller-volume things (i.e. not for cooking imam baildi or French fries).
It does last a long time, though, so if you want a good deal, find your local Mediterranean market and pick up a tin, then transfer portions to a more convenient bottle with a funnel. Kept in a cool, dark place, you should get several years of shelf life.
Agreed, if you can find the name of the exact location on the bottle then you are probably protected under a European PDO. Kalamata is an island famed for the quality of its olives. In the UK I buy Iliada oil from the supermarket, it is a good quality Greek olive oil that is one of the most popular brands in Greece (not just a made up brand for export).
Remember that each oil has its own smoke point and you shouldn't take Olive oil to it's smoke point. If you need to cook with smoking oil (some Asian cooking) then you need a different oil. I once saw a chart of which oils were best for different uses but I can't find it now.
> Trader Joe's now has a house brand of 100% Greek Kalamata olive oil, which they buy in bulk and bottle, and is very good for the price.
Does it taste at all like olives, or is it the same bland test-tube oil?
> The traditional place to buy it in the U.S. has been in 5-liter tins at Mediterranean grocery stores catering to immigrants (depending on the region, these might be "Greek", "Lebanese", "Turkish", or "Arab" supermarkets). These are a great deal, especially if you cook with it, but off the radar of most regular shoppers.
Nobody that I know buys 5-liter tins of oil (I'm italian) and I wouldn't even know where to buy them. The most common format is 1 liter, followed by 0.75
Apparently I have bad memory, because 3-L is what I was thinking of, not 5-L. I'm not Italian myself, but my Italian landlord brings these kinds of things (not the same brand, but same format) regularly: http://www.colavita.com/store/images/products/EV_Oils/Med-Ti...
Most households in Greece will have something like that, and they're easy to find in any country if you go to a Turkish, Greek, or Arab supermarket. I could be wrong about Italy.
Don't confuse olive oil for cooking (commonly purchased in 3 liter tins) with extra virgin olive oil. This article is about extra virgin olive oil. EVOO is usually consumed raw, unheated, with bread, cheese, on salads - it would completely defeat the purpose of the EVOO production technique which is one of low temperture, purely mechanical extraction, to heat EVOO to high temperatures as is commonly done with lower grades of olive oil.
Just checked my 3-L tins to be sure, and they're extra-virgin also. The problem with the lower grades is that they're extracted with chemical means (hexane solvents) and generally worse for any usage. The modest price savings isn't really worth it, since better stuff is affordably priced anyway.
It varies by country, but heating doesn't necessarily exclude an oil from "extra-virgin olive oil"; the separate "cold-pressed" label covers that.
I'm italian and when you buy extra-vergin olive oil (btw I think I never buyed in my lifetime non extra-vergin olive oil) you can read where the olives come from (either 100% italian, mixed with european olives, extraeuropean). It's not difficult to make a choice. I'll try greek oil if I can find it and compare
[1] http://www.gaea.gr/, [2] http://www.papadim.com/en/products/extra-virgin-olive-oil/, [3] http://www.fiveoliveoil.com/five-olive-oil-from-greece/, [4] http://www.eleia.gr/index_en.html, [5] http://www.moriaelea.com/?page_id=42, [6] http://www.maleasoliveoil.gr/en/olive-oil.