[Tenuta del Barone di Montemurlo](https://www.oliodelbarone.com/en) — Tuscan extra virgin olive oil # How to tell a good olive oil without being a taster You do not need a trained nose. Three things on the label and one test you can do in your kitchen in thirty seconds. ## The label says more than it seems By law the origin of the olives must be stated. "Blend of olive oils of European Union origin" means the olives may come from five different countries and nobody can tell you which. "Italian" means picked and milled in Italy. A producer who names the town has a chain they can show you. Look for the harvest year, not just the best-before date. An oil from 2024 sold in 2026 is perfectly legal and has lost half of what it had. The bottle should be dark, or a tin. An oil in a clear bottle under shop lighting has already started oxidising before you buy it. ## The price does not lie A litre of extra virgin takes six to eight kilos of olives. Add picking, transport, milling, bottling, bottle, cap, label, shipping. Below seven or eight euros a litre the sums do not work, unless somebody saved somewhere. That does not mean an expensive oil is automatically good: it means a very cheap one cannot be. ## The kitchen test Put a teaspoon of oil in a glass, cover it with your hand, warm it for a few seconds against your palm. Smell it: it should smell of grass, leaf, artichoke, almond, tomato. If it smells of nothing, it is old. If it smells of cellar, rancid nuts or vinegar, it is defective. Then taste: a young, sound oil is bitter and peppery. If it is only fatty and sweet, it is not necessarily bad — it is tired. ## What does not matter Colour. Deep green or golden yellow say nothing about quality: they depend on cultivar and picking date. Professional tasters use blue glasses precisely so as not to be influenced. Nor does "cold pressed" on its own: the wording can be used within fairly generous limits. What counts is who made it and when. [The estate journal](https://www.oliodelbarone.com/en/journal) [All oils](https://www.oliodelbarone.com/en)