Buy the cheaper Spanish brand. Beria oil is also Spanish, just like nearly all Italian olive oil sold here; they buy it in bulk, package, market it and collect all the profits. Spanish exporters, apparently, still work under the delusion that the way to make profits in the US is to sell excellent products at cheap prices.
If you look at the label in Italian olive oil, it says _packed_ in Italy. Italy doesn't even make enough for domestic consumption.
One more plug: try the red wines from Ribera de Duero, which have started arriving in the US. In particular, try the Penascal and its classier cousin, Realeza. If they aren't the _best_ $5 and $7 bottles of red wine you've ever had, I'll eat my hat.
The quality of olive oil depends on the acidity level, i.e., the free fatty acids present in the oil. The lower the better. This acidity level has little to do with flavor, but affects the healthfulness of the product. There are three basic kinds:
1) Extra Virgin: Acidity under 1 degree (which I think means 1% of weight).
2) Virgin: Acidity under 2 degrees
(Both of these are extracted directly from the olive, with very little processing).
3) Regular: Made by refining low-quality virgin oil (> 2 degree acidity), removing excess fatty acids (along with flavor, color and taste) and partly replacing the latter by adding virgin olive oil.
There is also Pomace olive oil, made by extracting the oil from the solid residue left over from the process and adding virgin oil.
Spanish legislation is very strict when it comes to labeling olive oil. Not so here, I suspect. The acidity levels are rarely displayed. I do think that the distinction between virgin, regular and pomace still holds, though. Just bear in mind that, absent clearly label acidity levels, there is no reason why the more expensive virgin oils should be better than others. There is, however, a big difference between virgin, regular and pomace.
> Gregory P. Nowell
> Associate Professor
> Department of Political Science, Milne 100
> State University of New York
> 135 Western Ave.
> Albany, New York 12222
>
> Fax 518-442-5298
-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 272 4808 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique