Have you ever really read the label on the oil in your kitchen? Not the brand — the label. The small print on the back. Most of the people who climb into my jeep tell me no. And it is not their fault: oil is the product we use every day and know least about.

I make oil at Colle Arfuso, above Montefalco, from two thousand olive trees that are 80% Moraiolo. But this guide is not here to sell it to you: it is here to help you choose better, wherever you buy. A customer who understands oil is the best customer I can have — and if they understand oil, sooner or later they ask themselves a question or two about the two-euro bottle at the supermarket.

First: the label doesn’t lie (if you know where to look)

Let us start with the most important words: “Extra Virgin Olive Oil”. That is a legal category, not a compliment. It means low acidity and no defects at the official tasting. But inside that category there is everything: from the masterpiece to the bare minimum.

Here is what I look for when I read a label:

  • The origin, precisely. “100% Italian” is a start. A region, an area, a producer with a first and last name is far better. Be wary of wording like “blend of EU and non-EU oils”: anything from anywhere can be in there.
  • The harvest year. Oil is not wine: it does not improve with age. A good oil states the year it was picked, because it has nothing to hide. If the year isn’t there, ask yourself why.
  • “Cold-extracted”. It means nobody heated the olive paste to squeeze more out of it. You lose yield, you gain fragrance. We take the olives to the mill within 24 hours of picking for exactly this reason: with every hour that passes, the olive loses something.
  • The container. Light is the enemy of oil. Dark glass is fine, a tin is better still: it blocks the sun completely. A clear bottle on a brightly lit supermarket shelf, on the other hand, is an oil ageing in public.

Second: the nose already knows

Pour a little into a small glass, warm it for a moment between your hands and smell. What should reach you? Green. Freshly cut grass, tomato leaf, artichoke, fresh almond. The fruit of a living olive.

What should not reach you: rancidity — the smell of old walnuts or crayon wax — or a closed-in smell, like a damp cellar or fermented olives. Those are the classic defects of a tired oil, or one made from olives left waiting too long. Once you can recognize them, you never forget them.

If the oil tastes of nothing, it is not delicate. It is empty. Those are two different things.

Third: in the mouth — fragrance, balance and a sting that is good news

This is where eighty per cent of table wisdom falls apart. You taste a young oil and feel a sting at the back of your throat — and you may think something is wrong. It is the opposite: that sting is the polyphenols, the olive’s natural antioxidants. But careful: pepperiness on its own tells half the story. A great oil is first of all fragrant and balanced — the pepperiness has to be there, but just enough, at the end, without covering everything else. It also depends on where the trees grow: ours are at 400 meters on clay and marl, and what comes out is soft and harmonious, while olive trees grown on rock give sharper oils.

At home we put it like this: it is the olive complaining. A “sweet”, flat oil that slides away without saying anything is often simply an oil that has lost its energy — or never had any.

The best test? Warm bruschetta, no tomato, no garlic, no distractions. Bread and oil. If after the first bite you want a second, you have your answer.

Fourth: the myths to drop

  • “Deep green color is a sign of quality.” No. Colour depends on the variety and on when the olives were picked, and professional tasters use blue glasses precisely so as not to be influenced. Judge with your nose and your mouth, never with your eyes.
  • “The fridge test: if it goes solid, it is pure.” A myth that refuses to die. It is true that below 10–12 degrees an oil that has not been industrially filtered forms white lumps — the natural crystallisation of waxes and saturated fats — but it is not proof of quality: it only says the oil was not “winterised” in a factory. If you find lumps in the tin in winter, it is completely normal: bring it back to room temperature and the oil returns exactly as it was. No microwave, please.
  • “Good oil is the farmer’s, loose, with no label.” Sometimes yes, often no. The romantic unlabelled demijohn can hide olives picked late and handled worse. A serious producer is not afraid to write everything down: year, area, variety.
  • “In cooking they are all the same anyway.” An oil rich in polyphenols stands up better in the pan too. And in any case: you taste the difference above all raw — on pasta, on grilled vegetables, on salad. Where the oil is the ingredient, not the lubricant.

Fifth: the price tells a story

I will not tell you which figure is right — it depends on the area, the year and the yield. I will tell you how the chain works: our olives yield 12–15%. In plain terms, you need seven or eight kilos of olives for a liter of oil. Add hand-picking, the mill within 24 hours, the tin, and you work out for yourself that below a certain price somebody, somewhere, cut something. When you find an extra virgin at seed-oil prices, that is the clearest label of all.

The shopping list, in short

  • A precise origin and a producer with a name
  • The harvest year stated
  • Cold extraction
  • A tin or dark glass, never a clear bottle in the sun
  • On the nose: grass, leaf, green — never rancid
  • In the mouth: balance, with bitterness and pepperiness there just enough — those are the polyphenols
  • And at home: keep it in the dark and the cool, away from the stove

One last thing, and then I will let you get to the kitchen. An Enosafari guest once asked me, after the bruschetta: “What is that sting at the end?” I told him the truth: it is the polyphenols — the oil is alive, and living things make themselves felt, with the right manners. He bought two tins. But even if he had bought nothing, he would have taken home the most important thing: from that day on, he reads the label.

— Giorgio Brunozzi, Colle Arfuso, Montefalco