Grad Pula

The olive oil of Istria which is the northwestern part of Croatia by the Adriatic sea is known to be some of the best olive oil in the world. We landed in Pula Croatia yesterday and our first stop was to the olive oil museum where we learned the history of Istria's olive oil production, how olive oil was made historically, and we were treated to an olive oil tasting and educational class.

It was awesome, we learned about the 3 stages of olive oil production; grinding, pressing, and separation. We also learned about the 5 different stages of olives as well as the 3 categories of olive oil; extra virgin, virgin, and lampante. Lampante olives are olives that are worm ridden and rotten and was given to slaves back and the day and also used for lighting in lamps. Today 80% of olive oil made, is lampante and yet the vast majority of olive oil sold is extra Virginia olive oil.

How could this be the case? Well they take lampante oil mix it in with very trace amount of extra virgin olive oil to get it down to under .8% amino acids. It now can be called and sold as extra virgin olive oil in the stores even though the majority of it is not. That's typically what your buying in grocery stores is lampante oil when it just says made in italy or made in Greece, or made in California. True 100% extra virgin olive oil is typically made by smaller local producers and will always have the name of the producer and address under the country in which it is made.

During our tasting we tried both high quality and low quality extra virgin olive oil and we can now decidedly tell the difference thanks to Maya our instructor. High quality extra virgin olive oil outside of the labeling noted above should always taste fresh, fruity, and bitter (some have peppery notes). It should never taste thick or oily on your pallet, it should taste light. It was a delightful and informative tour and we were amazed at how robust and complex Istria olive oil tastedRead more