Olives101.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOYuQCs696g

Il Buco owner Donna Lennard will debut her olive-oil documentary, La Raccolta, at the Food Film Festival tomorrow night. The film captures the waning traditions of Umbria’s olive-oil harvest, and a tasting of what Lennard calls the region’s “full-flavored, herbaceous, and spicy oil” will follow. Lennard attended NYU’s graduate film program, but this is [...]

Which is the best 2008 organic olive oil in the world, where does it come from, who produced the best blended and which extra virgin olive oil presented the best label and packaging?
The most important rewards in the world for organic olive growing - Biol Prize, Biolblended and BiolPack - will will be handed out [...]

Italian police have arrested 39 people and seized truckloads of fake olive oil destined for the United States, Germany and Switzerland to be sold at a big profit.
Police said on Monday they seized 25,000 litres (5,500 gallons) of the fake oil. The gang was adding flavouring and colourants to vegetable oil and slapping false labels [...]

The Olive Oil Festival will be held from 3rd to 6th April in Ranzo in Imperia’s hinterland. Arrived at the 6th edition, this year this big festival is yet again promoted by Ranzo Council, the Region, Province and the Mountain Community of the Alta Valle Arroscia
Many olive oil producers of Ranzo , well known in [...]

Bee Wilson looks into the murky world of olive oil.
‘Extra-virgin’ suggests great purity. It sounds even better in Italy, land of superlatives and Madonnas: extravergine. It rolls off the tongue like a prayer. So it’s a shame that much Italian extra-virgin olive oil - perfect oil from the first pressing of olives - is anything [...]

By Malcolm Moore,
Police in Italy have arrested 23 people and confiscated 85 farms in an operation that has exposed the scale of the country’s fraudulent olive oil trade.
More than 400 officers took part in Operation Golden Oil after an investigation discovered as many as 91 people may have been involved in passing off low quality [...]

The European Commission has given Italy two months to explain why it obliges olive oil producers to mark the origin of the olives on product labels in contravention of E.U. laws, a spokesman said Friday.
“As far as we are concerned, that is not in conformity with European legislation, where voluntary labeling is possible but not [...]

A new law in Italy requires producers of virgin and extra-virgin olive oil to include labels indicating where the olives were picked and pressed.
The purpose is to guarantee authenticity and quality, a report from Rome said.
The consumer group Codacons likes the new law but thinks it’s not enough to eliminate fraud. Members want acidity levels [...]

How can olives produce “green” electric power??
Lucchi and Guastalli, an olive oil producing firm of Santo Stefano di Magra, in Liguria’s eastern province has recently inaugurated a new kind of olive-pressing machine, which could herald a real technological revolution in the arch-shaped Italian region, noted to be the major olive-producer of Northern Italy.
The new [...]

After Nudo, an organic farm in the green hills of Umbria, Italy, proposes an unusual gift idea for Christmas: Adoption of an olive tree, a present that will help to preserve nature.
The olive tree is one of the oldest cultivated plants of humanity. Since antique times it is a symbol for peace, longevity, health and [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftUjSyy-gTs

“OLIVAGANDO”, a cultural event scheduled for Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 November 2007,is organized by the Industry Department of the Municipality of Magione and sponsored by the Umbria Region.The event includes workshops, a conference and gastronomy stands
The conference focuses on the prospects of olive growing in the Trasimeno area, workshops and entertainment for children, a [...]

By Núria Roig,
Extra virgin olive oil has become such a symbol of healthy eating that it is hard to believe that it was once accused of increasing the harmful cholesterol. It was a fat, so it had to be bad for us. Fortunately, we left those times behind and now olive oil and most fats [...]

While the rest of the Mediterannean consumes most of the olive oil it produces, olive oil consumption in Turkey is the lowest in the region. Turks consume one kilogram of the oil a year while their neighbors comsume an average of 15. Producers in Ayvalık say it’s time the government inspires Turks to buy and [...]

Olive oil is different from other cooking oils in many ways. The most important differences to consumers and cooks are its heart-healthy properties and its taste. Unlike vegetable oils, it has one.
It can be evaluated like wine, especially extra-virgin olive oil that comes from the first pressing of olives grown in one grove or region. [...]

• Says it guarantees extra virgin olive oil authenticity
• Antidote to the trade in adulterated olive oil
The California Olive Oil Council has launched a promotional campaign for its seal of certification for extra virgin olive oil following publication of a report laying out the problem of adulterated imported olive oil.
The report, “Letter from [...]

By Tom Mueller,
On August 10, 1991, a rusty tanker called the Mazal II docked at the industrial port of Ordu, in Turkey, and pumped twenty-two hundred tons of hazelnut oil into its hold. The ship then embarked on a meandering voyage through the Mediterranean and the North Sea. By September 21st, when the Mazal II [...]

By Tamara McLean,

Australians who regularly eat a Mediterranean-style diet rich in olive oil, vegetables and light cheese are halving their risk of dying from heart disease, research shows.
The benefits of the diet are well documented in Greece and Italy but a newly released Melbourne study has confirmed the same benefits can be reaped in Australia.
The [...]

It’s not always the label on the wine bottle that attracts admiring attention at dinner parties.
Sometimes it’s on the one containing green-gold extra-virgin olive oil.
In the past 7 years there has been a small revolution in the winelands that has nothing to do with grapes. It gathered momentum when Italy’s Giulio Bertrand bought Somerset West’s [...]

Tuscany’s 12 hills to become centre of biomass production - Chianti could become a production centre for renewable biomass energy thanks to an abundance of vegetable by-products from the cultivation of olives and grapes, in addition to livestock and wood farming.
The University of Florence already has an experimental project in place to study eventual uses [...]