Originally Posted by
cubbie
I recently heard (could have been on "The Splendid Table") that you should think about the season of the year when picking an olive oil. I don't remember the details well, so if someone can set me straight on this, I'd appreciate it. What I think I remember is something about the harvesting and bottling times in the northern and southern hemispheres. Unless I have it mixed up, you get a fresher olive oil by buying from your own hemisphere in the summer, and the other hemisphere in the winter.
That makes alot of sense. The harvest in Europe is from late October to January aprox.
I guess that in the Southern hemisphere that would at a different time of the year.
For freshness check if the bottles indicate the year of harvest. Bottling old oil or freshning old oil with some of the new is not that uncommon.