“A drop of oil is a drop of history, of legend, of myth and religion,” says Gioia Pinna, who lives in Trevi, in Umbria. There she presses from the fruit of her own groves the olive oils called Gioia di Trevi and Principe di Mascio. They are extra-virgin olive oils—EVOO, for short—and they seem to win awards every time out of the box, or, I should say, bottle. A dozen in the last three years alone.

Agricola Mascio, near Trevi, where Gioia Pinna presses her splendid oils in Umbria, the region of St. Francis.

Olive oil is, Gioia continues, “one of the foundations of Mediterranean Civilization as well as the Mediterranean Diet. It has been food, medicine, cosmetic and fuel for lamps. It touches three great religions. In Genesis, a dove bears the olive leaf to tell Noah ‘the waters were abated from off the earth.’ Jews light their Hanukkah menorahs to recall the miracle of one night’s oil burning for eight nights instead. The Koran says the light of Allah is like ‘a lamp kindled from a sacred tree, an olive’.” 

Gioia’s oils, most other Italian EVOOs, are also DOP. That is, they carry the blue-and-yellow seal of Denominazione d’Origine Protetta,

The DOP seal to look for

which certifies that the olives were grown in a specific region according to requirements that control everything from the grove to the bottling line. These disciplines, as Italians call them, have helped combine ancient agricultural values and practices with science and technology. The result is that a traditional peasant product has developed into an international business worth well over $10 billion a year. It’s a vigorous business, rife with competitive elbowing and eager for expansion.

Bona Frescobaldi is among the eager ones. She is also the wife of Vittorio Frescobaldi ,of Tuscany’s Marchesi di Frescobaldi family, mother of four and president of Promoliva, which is determined to do something about the fact that “olive oil dresses only three or four percent of the world’s salads. Although ancient, it is for many people still something new.” Americans sousing their greens with Green Goddess Dressing fire her with missionary zeal, as do those Britons addicted to the bottled horror known as salad cream. Olive is what well-dressed greens should wear, this season and next, now and forever; such is her gospel. I speak advisedly, for “gospel” literally means “good news,” and that’s what olive oil is.

That’s because it is wonderfully healthful stuff: cholesterol-free, easily digested, a balm to scalp and skin—not to mention sports and mathematics: The ancient Greeks oiled up for Olympic events (and, in fact, wore nothing else), and Archimedes, going a step further, discovered the principles of geometry by using his fingernails to trace figures on his lubricated skin.

Olive oil is fruity to buttery to robust in flavor (often with a peppery kick), with colors from poison green to bottled sunlight. Its fragrance is perfume. But beware! There are snares for the unwary. Don’t, for example, judge an oil by its color. That says nothing about taste, freshness or quality. Color comes from the olive variety or blend of varieties used (at professional tastings oils are sipped from black or cobalt-blue cups so tasters won’t be misled by pretty hues). And if you think olive oil is too heavy in taste, read the label—and try one labeled fruttato (fruity) instead of robusto. But if robusto is what you crave, go all the way: Instead of the brilliantly clear oils most consumers favor, try a rich, murky, mosto.

In oil, the word mosto means ‘must,’ the pure liquid straight from the press, just as it does in wine. (Indeed, unfiltered wines are gaining in popularity with more sophisticated consumers.) Mosto oil is not filtered but it is decanted: it’s rested in large terra cotta jars until larger bits of matter settle to the bottom and any residual water floats to the top. Then it is racked off for bottling.

Settling ‘jars’ are huge. These are about the size of those Ali Baba used to dispatch the Forty Thieves

Pass on anything labeled Light or Lite. That designation doesn’t mean low-calorie (all vegetable oils are calorically equal and cholesterol-free) but that all its flavor has been stripped away by chemical cleansing. 

Don’t expect a bargain price. Pomace Oil may be cheap, but it’s also the lowest grade, chemically processed. And avoid supermarket gallons. Almost all of them are 98 percent non-Italian oil, mostly from Greece, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and elsewhere. In Italy, bulk-packers add two percent Italian oil, opening a legal loophole that allows them to brand their gallons “Product of Italy.” (That’s how Italy became the leading oil importer and leading oil exporter simultaneously. At retail, look for a bottle no larger than 25 ounces or as small as six ounces. And it almost certainly won’t have an Italian flag on the label: that, like the name Lucca on supermarket gallons, hints of trickery.

Store your oil carefully: heat and light are its great enemies—air, too, so don’t use one of those open-spouted pizzeria cans unless you pour as freely as a pizzeria does. I’m likely to have two or three bottles of various oils open at one time, so I keep them fresh with a Vacu Vin device. It works with wine, why not oil too?

Vacu Vin Wine Pump Protects Olive Oil too, and costs little

The olive belongs to all of the Mediterranean, but it’s Italy that rules the oil trade, and it does so with top quality, marketing genius and relentless myth-making. Tuscans created the extra-virgin standard (perfect fruit must be cold-pressed without chemicals within 24 hours of harvest and yield oil of less than one percent acidity); being master self-publicists, they spread the belief that their oils are the best and only oils. Yes, they are magnificent–Laudemio and Monte Vertine, Volpaia, Poggerino, all of them–but the region’s cold winters put a peppery bite in the finish, sometimes a fierce one.  If you object to it, as I do, seek the more delicate produce of Liguria (readily identified by its traditional foil-wrapped bottles), or of  Lake Garda or Apulia. Fred Plotkin, author of “Italy: A Guide for the Gourmet Traveler” and “Recipes from Paradise,” says “I unabashedly assert that Ligurian olive oil is the best,” and I agree, and not merely because Liguria is in my genes. Fred and I are slaves to the light, golden Ceppo Antico and L’Albero dei Sapori; to Calvi, Pietrantica and Rosmarino Farm. Alain Ducasse, on the other hand but still choosing from the same region, is devoted to Terre Bormane.           

We keep open minds and palates, however. Sometimes a Tuscan EVOO is just the thing, or one of Gioia Pinna’s Umbrians, or Sicily’s Rapitalà and Planeta. Apulia is a major producer and it seems to have the biggest and oldest trees: they’re wild, haunted-looking things like the ones that snatch at Hansel and Gretel when they’re lost in the forest at night in a Disney cartoon. (An envious Tuscan one said to me, “Have you seen those trees? They’re not trees—they’re buildings!”)

One of the legendary olive ‘buildings’ of Puglia

And then there’s Argiolas of Sardinia, which makes oil as good as its wine; I have drunk both, I confess, greedily. From the bottle.

As for the production processes, there are two, both simple and fast. After the olives are harvested they go to the mill of frantoio, where they’re washed, crushed and pressed. Some mills still crush with traditional stone wheels several feet in diameter; the resulting paste is then spread on round mats of plastic or natural fibre. These are stacked on a central spindle and the press comes down from above, squeezing out the oil. Modern mills crush in stainless-steel hammermills and use centrifuges gleaming with knobs, buttoms and lighted dials to spin out the oil.

Partisans fiercely argue which method is the better, but if you want to take your pick on a visit to a mill some day, you’d better hurry, because  

Castello di Volpaia hews to tradition: Stone wheels crush the olive as of old, but this crusher is a modern three-wheel 

EU bureaucrats will decide the issue for you. The homey and traditional stone crusher, folkloric and charming, is on its way out, getting the bum’s rush because the EU talks a good artisanal game but actually has a deep-seated loathing for artisanal methods, which it considers unsanitary. It hates unpasteurized cheese; hates old olive presses; hates wooden wine fermenters; hates everything that is old and slow and proven by centuries of use. It loves only sterility, has the power to impose it, and does 

Some Novembers ago I joined a huddle of Tuscan farmers at Santa Tea frantoio. It was a dreary, wet, bone-cold morning and we all were grimly silent as we waited for the crush to begin. A small fire cowered in its grate; such warmth as we got came from blowing on our fingers and stamping our feet.

Just-rinsed olives move toward their destiny by conveyor belt; left over leaves and twigs will be removed by vacuums and blowers

Then a load of fruit was dumped out of the back of a truck—one of those noisy, slow little three-wheeled rattletraps called an Api(Bee). It went from hopper by conveyor belt to be washed and then went by belt again, this time to the crusher. A few minutes later the fruit emerged as the first oil of the harvest. It poured from the spigot, thick, green-gold and fragrant.

At Santa Tea frantoio, the first filo d’oro or ‘golden thread’ pours forth 

Then there were growing murmurs of pleasure as chunks of bread appeared from every pocket and sleeve. We dunked and tasted and tasted again, united by ritual and history and miracle, grinning and grunting, too stunned to talk.

Now I suppose it’s possible that similar scenes mark the first crushing of the year’s corn and rapeseed and sunflower crops at the gigantic industrial mills out in the stainless-steel heart of Archerdanielsmidland-land. On the other hand, perhaps not. 

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Bill Marsano’s PouredwithPleasure.com is a blog devoted to his insights, laments and bizarre opinions on wine, spirits, food and almost anything else that crosses his mind and keyboard at the same time.