I recently went on a tour of the Temecula Olive Oil Ranch. It was fascinating. We were escorted by one of the owners, Tom Curry, who is a wealth of information. He spent 1 1/2 hours with us, showing us the olive groves, explaining the growing and production process, and answering our many questions. Next, we all gathered around an outdoor bar for an olive oil tasting. We were all expecting bread to dip the olive oil in, but they do not do it that way. Each person got about six little plastic cups, and into each cup was poured less than a teaspoon of oil. Just enough to taste. One after another, we tasted and oohed and ah-ed. We started with two typical extra virgin olive oils. Each had a buttery, yet peppery taste. They were excellent. Then we got into the olive oil infusions. Basil oil, citrus oil, garlic oil and jalapeno oil were all excellent. With several of the oils they did a vinegar pairing. We tasted a pomegranete balsamic vinegar, a vanilla fig white balsamic vinegar, and a hatch chili vinegar (really hot). I never knew oilive oils could taste so different.
Tom spent quite a bit of time talking about quality. At his ranch everything is done by hand, including the picking of the olives. At mass produced farms the olives are picked by machine, actually shaken, which can cause bruising. We learned that putting olive oil in a clear bottle may look pretty, but it is not the right thing to do. Sunlight is terrible for the olive oil and will turn it rancid. Tom talked a lot about rancid olive oil, and said that much of what you buy in the supermarkets is already rancid when you buy it. This does not mean you will get sick from it, just that it does not have the true taste it was meant to have. Tom thinks that most Americans don't really know what good olive oil should taste like and have gotten used to a poor imitation. European standards for labels like extra virgin, cold pressed and organic are different than American standards. These labels are for the most part marketing tools, according to Tom.
Light olive oil, which I have seen in the markets, implies that it is lower in calories. Olive oil is olive oil. There is no light olive oil.
Temecula Olive Oil is expensive. I think a bottle is around $17.00. Try it once and I don't think you'll ever go back to what you had been using. If you're like me, you get it at Trader Joe's or Costco for a very good price, but once you taste the good stuff you'll be hooked. Temecula Olive Oil Co. has three retail stores. One on Cedros in Solana Beach, one in Old Town, and one in old Temecula. They sell vinegar, mustard and soap, in addition to about a dozen different flavors of olive oil.
Food is very expensive today, but there are some things that worth the extra bucks. Good olive oil is one of them. I bought my first bottle of Temecula Olive Oil over a year ago, and it didn't last long. One of my favorite lunches or salads for dinner is a caprese salad. Fresh heirloom tomatoes, sliced and salted, fresh mozzarella cheese, and a piece of basil on top. Drizzle on a little basil olive oil and the salad goes from good to great. Now I have the citrus olive oil which I use for salad dressing and will experiment with for other recipes. I'll let you know what I come up with. In the mean time, give a good olive oil a try. You won't go back to the old stuff.
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