Why is Italian oil good?
Italy is the world's leading consumer of olive oil, particularly extra virgin.
Italy is the olive oil producing country with the highest number of varieties in the world. It is estimated that there are more than 500 varieties of olive trees (cultivars), capable of producing an infinite number of exceptional oils. All these cultivars, multiplied by the number of microclimates in Italy and the different soil types, make Italy the undisputed qualitative leader in the global olive oil market.
Other producing countries, such as Spain (the world’s leading oil producer, by quantity), have much fewer cultivars: 50-70 at the most.
Which region makes the best olive oil?
Every region of Italy is rich in different olive cultivars, and is therefore able to offer different stories of taste.
Speaking of our region, Umbria is the only region in Italy with a geographical designation across its entire territory, meaning every Umbrian sub-zone produces a PDO and offers oils with an Umbrian character, as fragrant and deep as the roots of its monumental olive trees.
What are the best olive varieties?
Some of the best-known and most appreciated Italian cultivars are: leccino, frantoio, moraiolo (in Umbria and central Italy), coratina, ogliarola, biancolilla, nocellara, taggiasca, moresca, carolea, itrana, etc.; each of them with different characteristics that vary from region to region, from place to place.
How to recognise the quality of olives?
The quality of olives also depends on the variety. Speaking of the variety of oil olives, they are usually smaller than table olives but have a flesh with a high oil content. Oil olives come in many types and each cultivar is typical of a national area.
An oil olive, to be of high quality and produce an excellent extra virgin olive oil, must be intact and at the right degree of ripeness.
What is the best brand of extra virgin olive oil?
Every brand of oil produces different qualities of oils.
Coppini is a historic family brand boasting a wide range of oils to guarantee consumers maximum choice: from the premium line (PDO, organic, traceable fruitiness), to the balanced conventional line, right through to the most accessible and versatile baseline.
What makes an oil brand excellent is also the quality guarantee offered thanks to the presence of cutting-edge in-house laboratories (which analyse all raw materials and finished products before putting them on the market) and international certifications (which are periodically renewed with rigorous and continually implemented audits).
Which is the best extra virgin olive oil?
Extra virgin olive oil is by definition an organoleptic, perfect oil, with a maximum acidity of 0.8% and obtained exclusively by mechanical procedures, that is to say without chemical refinement processes.
However, there are extra virgin olive oils that are an explosion of flavour and particularly healthy thanks to their high polyphenol content (the antioxidants in oil) and the absence of pesticides, such as Italian organic oils (e.g. Coppini L’Italiano Bio) or PDO oils with zero pesticide residues (e.g. Coppini DOP Colli Amerini).
