To start at the beginning, unlike many natural products that Spain is famous for—tomatoes, peppers and aubergines, all of which arrived relatively late—Romans were already exporting Andalucian oil around the Mediterranean two thousand years ago. And it is thought that the trees first arrived on Spanish soil a good thousand years before that, most likely from Asia Minor (more or less Greece and Turkey in modern terms). These first olives were Olea europaea, originally cultivated in Greece and Crete.
Olive oil is one of the country’s most valuable resources. There are more olive groves here than anywhere else in Europe, covering some two million hectares of land, and around 215 million trees, resulting in 300,000 tonnes of oil produced every year for export alone. The oil being infinitely more important than the fruit. The industry recognises several regions from the Empordà, Siruana and La Garriga here in Catalunya, to the vast olive plantations of Andalucia principally in the provinces of Córdoba and Jaén (which account for more or less 60 percent of the total crop), to the scrubby deserts of Aragon and the unlikely, but no less important, micro-plantations of La Rioja.
Reading the labels takes some education. Oils in Spain are split into different grades: extra virgin (no more than one-percent acidity), virgin (no more than two-percent acidity), ordinary virgin (no more than 3.3-percent acidity), lampante virgen (also no more than 3.3-percent acidity, but generally only sold to wholesalers) and plain old olive oil (no more than 1.5-percent acidity, but it is just refined lampante olive oil mixed with a dash or two of virgin or extra virgin). My main point is, if it’s not extra virgin or virgin, don’t buy it.
It’s also worth looking out for any information on harvesting. If the harvest was early (early autumn) then the oil will tend to be greener and more bitter tasting. Later harvests (winter/early spring)—when the fruit is ripe and squishy—yields milder, fruitier oils. When the olives arrive at the mills they are crushed, together with their pits, to make a mixture called ‘mash’. The mash is then pressed to extract the oil from the paste. Once the oil has risen to the top and is free of impurities, it is put into stainless steel tanks and generally left to mature for three to six months before bottling.
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