EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL CAMPAIGN 2019
It is an exceptional olive oil, of intense golden color with traces of green color and aroma of ripe fruits among which apple and banana stand out. In this campaign 2019 we have achieved a Premium flavor, with character, typical of extra virgin olive oil at the beginning of the season, but with the right itch, so that it is presented to the palate as a real pleasure hard to forget that we recommend taking raw and in salads to directly perceive all its flavor, and as part of stews and dishes cooked to enhance the flavors of our delicious Mediterranean cuisine.
Urquijo olive oil is an Extra Virgin olive oil made in Seville with a selection of olives picked by hand at the beginning of the season, from the Manzanilla (90%), Hojiblanca (5%) and Picual (5%) varieties. It is extracted by cold milling and natural pressing without centrifuging in the mill in less than 24 hours after harvesting has taken place, which makes it possible to obtain an Extra Virgin olive oil of the highest quality, color, smell and Premium flavor.
The extra virgin olive oil EVOO is, within the virgin olive oils, the category of highest quality olive oil.
Olive oil is an organic compound that accumulates in the tissues of fruits called olives or olives that produce olive trees or olives, evergreen trees of the Oleaceae family, and that is extracted from them by pressure. It has been used in a thousand-year-old way by the human being both for culinary purposes and for different uses.
When we refer to gastronomic uses, the known improvement of the dishes when using the EVOO, is evident for any palate, it accompanies practically any dish, sweet or salty, cold or hot, hence its resounding success.
For a virgin olive oil to be considered extra, it must meet two conditions: One of a chemical nature, summarized in the percentage of acidity, which must be less than 0.8º and another of an organoleptic nature, that is, of flavor and aroma that is check by official tasting, since there is not yet laboratory instruments that improve the nose and palate of professional tasters.
The requirements to be classified as extra virgin are:
The acidity must be less than or equal to 0.8º.
In a tasting panel, the median of the defect must be zero, and the median of the fruity attribute must be greater than zero.
Normally a tasting panel consisting of between seven and twelve tasters. With this we achieved an increase in the objectivity and the validity of the results obtained.
For its health benefits, and for its nutritional and organoleptic characteristics, EVOO is included within the group of superfoods. Among the properties of olive oil are that it helps us regulate our blood pressure and balance the body’s pH. It also reduces cholesterol, is antioxidant and regulates glucose..
In addition to the above, the EVOO is attributed other properties such as moisturizing the skin, promoting the digestive tract, helps to avoid gastric problems, and fights breast cancer.
All these benefits are due in large part to their great nutritional contribution in the form of fats to our body in saturated form (the least), and as monosaturated, and polyunsaturated.
The properties of olive oil in relation to gastronomy and dietetics have always been known, but lately this superfood is postulated as one of the most used remedies in the ever-sought-after goal of weight loss.
In this way, many experts recommend eating a raw spoonful of extra virgin olive oil every morning when you wake up on an empty stomach, and delay breakfast time at least half an hour from the ingestion of the oil so that its effect is complete.
Its capacity to satiate, its detoxifying character and its great help to the digestive system contributing fluidity and favoring a correct transit, complete the capacities of extra virgin olive oil against those extra kilos.
There is a very clear regulation in this regard with objects to provide consumers a clear and truthful information about the product they wish to acquire.
The information that the packer must show on the label of extra virgin olive oil can be grouped into three groups. On the one hand the mandatory information by regulation, on the other hand the facultative information regulated by regulations, if an oil meets certain additional requirements, and finally additional non-regulated information specific to each packer.
Mandatory information:
-Category and definition. The category would be “Extra virgin olive oil” and the definition “Higher category olive oil obtained directly from olives and only by mechanical procedures”.
-Preferential consumption. The oil has no expiration date and therefore a preferred consumption is indicated at the discretion of the packer. It is usually indicated between a year and a half and two years from the date of packaging. This is important, because the consumer can believe that the date of preferential consumption is calculated from the harvest of the olive.
-Oil origin. The country of origin of the olive harvest from which the oil comes must be indicated
-Name and sanitary registration of the packer.
–Net content and lot.
Optional information:
–“First cold pressure”. The packer can label his virgin oil with this information if the oil has been obtained at less than 27 ° C by means of a mechanical pressing of the olive paste, thanks to a traditional extraction system with hydraulic presses.
–“Cold Extraction”. Like the previous one, if it has been obtained at less than 27ºC by filtration or centrifugation of the olive paste.
-The indication of acidity or maximum acidity. This can be included if it is accompanied by the parameters of the peroxide index, the wax content and the absorbance in the ultraviolet (K270, K232 and ΔK).
–Organoleptic indications. They may only appear if they are based on the results of some of the analysis methods of Regulation (EEC) 2568/91, that is, as a result of the tasting conducted by an official tasting panel.
Additional information not regulated:
The packer can include that certain information that he considers relevant. In the case of Urquijo we have considered interesting to include:
–Harvest. We indicate the year of the olive harvest campaign. As the collection begins in October and may end in January or February, the two years are indicated. We understand that this is important because the oil loses nutritional properties as time passes.
–Variety. Or blend of varieties. In Urquijo we only make extra virgin oils but depending on the characteristics of the harvest of the year, our expert tasters looking for the best possible oil, and every year are not the same, they elaborate the best possible oil that can be either 100% mono varietal, or an occupation of varieties.
Obviously, other producers and packers will use characteristics that they consider relevant to their oils, such as saw or countryside oil, oils from centenary olive trees, rainfed, unfiltered, or warn of the possible existence of sludge, etc.
The towns and civilizations that have existed around the Mare Nostrum, and form together with wine and bread the base of the well-known Mediterranean diet, although it has also been The history of olive oil is part of the history of Mediterranean culture and culture. used over the centuries as fuel, lubricant, cosmetic, soap, and even perfume. About his qualities you have written from Maimonides to Averroes, the Roman Apicius, and Pliny the Elder, and we find it in medieval cookbooks like the Viandier, and the Menagerie in Paris.
There are archaeological remains in Egypt and Greece that reveal the existence of olive oil mills around 4,000 BC. In Greek mythology it is claimed that the goddess Palas Athena was the inventor of the olive tree and olive oil, while the Romans attribute it to the goddess Minerva, and the Egyptians claim that it was the goddess Isis who taught the people how to cultivate the olive tree and extract its oil. Olive oil was, and still is, in some cases at present, a great protagonist of rituals and religious festivals.
It is estimated that the origin of its cultivation began around the year 4,000 a.C. in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and today this is still the main area of production and consumption although there are other areas of importance such as the southern United States and some countries in South America. Both its cultivation, and especially its consumption, are expanding, once the fantastic qualities of olive oil are known all over the world.
. The grandfather of the current olive trees is the wild olive tree or wild olive tree, and from it, by means of natural hybridization, or forced by man, according to different scholars, emerged the European wave that is the current olive tree, although there are more than 260 varieties of it (although only 25 are considered as main varieties).
Various cultures, such as the Phoenicians, who were among the first to cultivate and commercialize olive oil, the Minoan civilization that cultivated olive trees in Crete, or the Peloponnesians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Ottomans, Etruscans, Romans, Greeks, Tartars and Turdetans , parents of many of the current cultures of the Mediterranean basin would not have evolved or thrived in the same way without olive oil. As an anecdote, it is worth mentioning that one of the most popular foods of the Romans was the Roman “ientaculum”, a kind of toast watered with olive oil, wine, and garlic.
In Spain, it is the Phoenicians who brought modern olive trees about the year 1,100 BC. C., and after them, the Romans greatly enhanced the production of olive oil in Betica for its good harvests and qualities and expanded its consumption for the rest of Europe. After the fall of the Roman Empire the consumption of olive oil fell with it, but little by little it is the religious orders of medieval Europe that take the reins of production in Europe reserved for monasteries and the upper class, until later times. modern where the new techniques of olive cultivation and oil extraction, have taken this product to levels of quality that make it essential in a healthy diet.
