CBS 2 Puts Olive Oils To The Test
Every so often a TV segment lines up a dozen supermarket olive oils and crowns a winner. It is fun to watch, but it tells you little. Here is how olive oil is really judged — and why the method matters more than the verdict.
A magazine or news blind tasting is entertainment first. A handful of tasters sip a dozen brands and pick favourites, and the result makes a headline. The trouble is that untrained palates often prefer the mildest, blandest oil — the one closest to no flavour at all — and mistake a real, peppery, bitter extra virgin for a fault. The official way of grading olive oil was designed precisely to strip out that kind of guesswork.
How the professionals do it
A recognised olive-oil panel tastes from a small cobalt-blue glass, warmed in the hand and covered with a watch-glass. The blue is deliberate: it hides the oil’s colour, because colour tells you nothing about quality and everything about bias — green looks ‘fresher’ to us even when it is not. The taster warms the oil, sniffs, sips with a sharp slurp to spray it across the palate, and scores it. This is a lab method dressed as a tasting, and its job is consistency, not showbusiness.
It is a hunt for faults, not favourites
The crucial shift is what they are looking for. To be graded extra virgin, an oil must have zero detectable defects and some positive fruitiness — that is the bar. Panels are trained to name specific faults: rancid (old, oxidised oil), fusty (olives left in heaps too long before pressing), musty, winey and others. An oil with any of these is not extra virgin, however pretty the bottle. A celebrity panel picking ‘the tastiest’ is answering a different, softer question and often rewards exactly the tired, defect-light blandness the professionals would mark down.
What this means for your shopping
You cannot run a full panel in a supermarket, but you can borrow its logic. Ignore the colour — the good producers put oil in dark bottles precisely because colour misleads. Look instead for a harvest date and a bit of bite: a fresh extra virgin should smell green and taste faintly bitter with a peppery catch at the back of the throat. That pepper is a sign of the very antioxidants a good oil is prized for. If an oil tastes of nothing, it is not automatically bad — but it is not the prize the television crowned, either. And plenty of oil sold as extra virgin would quietly fail a real panel, which is the same story told in how the grades get bent.
| Tasting glass | Small cobalt-blue, to hide colour |
|---|---|
| Why blind | Colour biases us; it is not a quality signal |
| Extra virgin bar | No detectable defects, plus positive fruitiness |
| Common defects | Rancid, fusty, musty, winey, metallic |
| Good signs | Green aroma, gentle bitterness, peppery finish |
| Panel | Trained and calibrated, not a celebrity line-up |
What to take to the shelf
- Ignore colour — that is why serious oil comes in dark glass.
- Trust a harvest date over any award badge.
- A little bitterness and a peppery throat-catch are good signs, not faults.
- Bland is not the same as good; a real panel rewards fruit, not blandness.
Judging olive oil: common questions
Why do tasters use blue glasses?
To hide the oil’s colour. Colour is not a reliable quality signal, but it biases us — green looks fresher — so professional panels remove it from the judgement.
Does darker or greener oil mean better?
No. Colour depends on variety and ripeness, not quality. That is exactly why good oil is sold in dark bottles and judged blind.
What makes an oil fail as extra virgin?
Any detectable sensory defect — rancid, fusty, musty, winey and so on — or a lack of fruitiness. The bar is zero faults, not merely a nice taste.
Are magazine taste tests reliable?
They are entertaining but soft. Untrained palates often prefer the blandest oil and mistake a healthy peppery bite for a fault.
Is a peppery, bitter oil a bad one?
Usually the opposite. Bitterness and a peppery finish point to the antioxidants that mark a fresh, well-made extra virgin.
I have watched dozens of these on-camera taste tests, and they almost always crown the blandest bottle on the table — because that is what an untrained palate finds ‘smooth’. The professionals do the opposite: they taste blind from a blue glass so colour cannot fool them, and they hunt for faults rather than favourites. Take one habit home from that: ignore the colour, chase the harvest date, and learn to read a peppery throat-catch as a good sign, not a problem.
Drawn from International Olive Council sensory-analysis method and standard extra-virgin grading practice.