Buying fresh olive oil can be a slippery (or oily) slope. There are so many different brands, olive varietals, bottles, and types of olive oil. When did securing fresh, tasty olive oil become such a conundrum? Here are our five fool-proof tips for finding the freshest olive oil in any oil aisle! 

1. Always Say Never

Unlike Justin Bieber's hit 2010 pop song, when looking for a fresh olive oil you want to find a brand that NEVER cuts or blends their oil with seed oils or vegetable oils.  Check the bottle to make sure it's 100% pure olive oil. Market analysts at Forbes found that more than 80% of labeled Italian olive oil was fraudulent. Bottles were deliberately mislabeled as pure virgin or extra virgin olive oil. Take an extra moment on the shelves to secure the real stuff. 

2. Harvest Date Matters

Olive oil is not like wine or bourbon. It does not get better with age. Over time as olive oil is exposed to light and oxygen, the flavor dissipates due to loss of antioxidants and polyphenols (learn more about the effects of oxygen and light on olive oil here and here). You know you are making a better olive oil choice when the brand provides the harvest date on the bottle, and that harvest date is within that calendar year. The closer you are to the harvest date, the smaller the likelihood is that the oil has had time to oxidize or go rancid. 

3. Become a Packaging Pro

If you can see the liquid gold olive oil through the bottle, you probably don't want to buy it. Fresh oil is kept out of direct light and oxygen, find opaque bottles that limit oxygen exposure. The darker the container, the better. The smaller the cap opening, the better. (That's why we love our opaque squeezy bottles!) 

4. Origin Stories 

We all love a long-winded and adventurous hero origin story, but when it comes to olive oil it should be a short story. Single origin is the name of the game. While some olive oils will technically use the same olive varietal, they might mix past harvests of older oil with new oil to create a multi-year hybrid. A single origin oil will only utilize one olive varietal all from one harvest year. Fresh, tasty olive oil should be coming from a small region, within a small time frame. 

5. When in Doubt EVOO it Out! 

An easy rhyme to remember, each time you go to the grocery store. Extra virgin olive oil goes through the least refining and heating practices. Oil labeled as extra virgin is the closest you can get to fresh off the olive farm. EVOO is the least processed and most flavorful. It's full of antioxidants and excellent olivey taste. Did someone say polyphenol power up?! 

EVOO is like that life-long friend, no frills, no lies, reliable, and just easy to get along with! 

If you're going through this checklist and finding a lot of the options are falling short, we will give you a bonus tip. Graza provides unblended, uncut, single origin EVOO in an opaque squeezy bottle. Did we mention that all of our olives come from a single region in Spain? Happy olive oil shopping!