I've not seen Lebanese olive oil here, even though my area has a lot of migrants from there in the 1970s.

Had this one on our SQ flight from CMB yesterday:
Colavita Italian EV olive oil.
‘Obtained exclusively from olives harvested in Italy’

There's an olive oil tasting bar at Fairway Markets here in the city, and I'm enjoying working my way through their store-bottled assortment. Off the top of my head--they have oils from several regions in Italy, Spain, Greece, France, California, and Australia. For a while I was buying a nice peppery oil from Puglia, but I think my current oil is Spanish. The oils are sold in 1-liter bottles, and I decant a liter to share with my significant other. We refrigerate most of the oil so it doesn't go rancid if it's around for more than a couple of months.

A while ago I tried a California oil from Trader Joe but wasn't terribly impressed.

Fornebufox, you need not refrigerate your olive oil if you want it to keep. Either place it in a dark glass bottle and keep it away from light and especially sunlight or put it in a clean stainless steal container (that way it can be left on the counter). We receive hundreds of liters of olive oil every year (our household consumes a lot of it on a daily basis) and it keeps for years as long as it's stored correctly and away from sunlight. Just an FYI from someone who lives in a country that has some of the BEST olive oil out there (IMHO) .

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.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I visited an olive plantation near napa, one hour north of san francisco. It's called mcevoy ranch. You should check out the tour and olive oil tasting. You can also pick up a batch for yourself. Very north italian in flavor.

Just in case you did try an oil tasting (through having time to kill or no lounge access?)...

• Was the product or products anything special or not normally found in that city?
• Did you remember it and buy it elsewhere?

I will add another good new local release to this list, soon.

Now about that Olive Oil place...

Sydney's Good Living supplement in SMH noted the opening of a new Italian & Australian olive oil specialty shop - at Strand Arcade, so perfect for anyone here who is staying in a Sydney hotel.

L'Oiloteca
Lvl2, Strand Arcade, Sydney
(i.e. a couple of blocks north of QVB/Town Hall or south of Martin Place/Wynyard)
Who: Nino Zoccali (ex- Otto exec chef)
What: Hand-poured oil - Italian & Australian specialty oils, in recyclable, 1L amber bottles.

This is in addition to a cafe (by day) / wine bar (after work) , plus a restaurant. (Cafe & Restaurant Pendolino).

This weekend's Melbourne trip (to many wineries in three regions in Victoria) we did notice a few olive plantations amongst the grape vines.

Best olive oils, Italy, especially if you buy single estate oils. Some of the best of Italy comes from Umbria. Try an "unfiltered" fresh harvest oil. That is what REAL olive oil is supposed to taste like. No light oils, no prostititions from Turkey, Lebonon, etc if you want the best. The purest oils are those that are "drip processed", not pressed at all, the oil just drips out of the olives after a rough chopping!
The saying is: do not worry about storage as you should consume a quart of oil in a month or less.

I was given a bottle of Woods Creek Extra Virgin Olive Oil as a Holiday gift.
I'm hoooked!

http://www.oliveoilsource.com

I'm always torn about buying nice olive oil vs. regular olive oil - but after reading some of your responses, I'm thinking I need to step it up a few notches.

I am very partial to Italian oil, out of some sort of patriotism for a country I wasn't even born in.

Seriously, I love Italian oil. For EV, I get the freshest I can from DiPalo's on Grand in NYC, which also provides me with most other Italian food products I need.

Sometimes for cooking I'll use Light OO, as it has a higher smoke point.

The best olive oil for dipping etc,I bought in Lucca,Italy

The price of olive oil has shot up following a drought in the Mediterranean, with the global price of oil hitting $6,000 per metric ton, the highest level since 1997. Last year the same metric ton of olive oil could be had for a little north of $4,000, so it�s a significant squeeze. Spain typically produces over a million tons of olive oil a year, but this year produced half that, while Italy�s in the worst drought in 70 years and saw its production decline 37 percent to 208,000 tons. Turkey and Greece are each attempting to increase production � Turkey produced 400,000 tons last year, up from 228,000 tons the year prior � but those of us who live in Greek neighborhoods of Queens can feel the panic in the air.

Clarisa Diaz, Quartz

https://www.numlock.com/p/numlock-news-may-10-2023-stinknet

Yikes
FWIW, I have had some favorite olive oils that were from California but those prices have likely gone up too.
Is there a favorite balsamic thread? I am looking for a new one that doesn't cost $25 a bottle--around $10-15 max.