Where Olive Oil comes from and how it is made

The major producing countries

Most Spanish oil comes from olives grown in the vast groves that spread across the Andalucian countryside. The hot sun beats down on the groves and helps to boost the yields. Typically the oil is sweetly fruity with low levels of bitterness and pepper. Catalonia, Extramadura and La Mancha also produce considerable quantities of delicate oil.

The Peleponnese and the island of Crete are the main Greek producing regions. Here well flavoured oils with herbaceous tones are made from Koroneiki olives. The better known Kalamata olives are used for the table. Some oils are labelled "Kalamata" but this refers to the region of the same name.

Olives are grown in every part of Italy with the exception of the far north west. Each region has its own weather, soils and varieties and styles vary from the sweet, lightly almond flavoured oils of Liguria, through the more pungent of oils of Tuscany and Umbria, to the peppery oils of Puglia and the sweetly tomato flavoured oils of Sicily. However, it is Puglia that is the main producer here followed by Sicily. Tuscany only accounts for 4% of Italy's oil production.

Growing olives

Most olives are grown by small to medium sized farmers who sell their olives to local co-operatives or to privately owned olive mills. These companies may pack a small amount of their best extra virgin olive oil under their own labels but they sell the bulk of it to large international packers who sell the brands that are on the supermarket shelves.

Some smaller producers processors mill and pack their own oils under the name of their farm or estate and these are sometimes known as "single estate oil". This phrase only applies to a relatively small number of oils from Tuscany, Umbria and Sicily and a handful from France, Spain and Australia. The oils are usually particularly good because the estates can afford to handpick the olives and use the most up-to-date processing equipment but there are plenty of other extra virgin oils from other producers that are also very good.

Processing olives

A revolution has been taking place in olive processing. The days of the donkey mill and screw press are long over and the term "traditional pressing" now refers to granite mill stones used with a hydraulic press. But this method, too, is passing. Oil like those in the Felippo Berio range are processed in modern centrifugal equipment which separates out the oil, water and pomace or olive residue in one continuous process. Systems vary but the best ones extract oils which taste very good and are nutritionally excellent.