Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads
People outside of Italy are probably not aware of how seriously they take the topic of olive oil over there. The label <i>"extra vergine"</i> increases the price so much that there is a huge economic incentive for fraud. To combat this they have a taste police (literally) that checks that olive oil samples are not secretly mixes of fresh and old oil together. They are... quite opinionated, as you can see this exchange from when a Dutch journalist came to visit them and asked their opinion on the (supposedly) extra virgin that was sold in the Netherlands[0].<p>Taster: <i>"This eh... oil is eh... very particular (...) It's Spanish!"</i><p>Journalist: <i>"It's Spanish? I wouldn't know."</i><p>T: <i>"Hah, now you know! This smell is very characteristic of Spanish olive oil."</i><p>J: <i>"But this is not a defect, is it?"</i><p>T: <i>"Yes."</i><p>J: <i>"It's defective?"</i><p>T: <i>"Yes."</i><p>J: <i>"Because it's Spanish?"</i><p>Other taster: <i>"For Italian people, yes."</i><p>A few minutes later[1], the boss comes with a more diplomatic answer:<p><i>"That the olive oil is Spanish is not a defect per sé, but within our guidelines we do consider it a defective product, because our own oil has a very specific smell and flavour. It's a fine product for Spain, but not for us."</i><p>EDIT: for the Europeans: the same program also revealed that Carbonell and Bertolli are the same Spanish company with a different label, with pretty much the same (mostly) Spanish olive oil. In case you care about that sort of thing. Personally I'm kind of curious how Greek olive oil fits in this picture.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkO1dwx2_KA&t=16m" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkO1dwx2_KA&t=16m</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkO1dwx2_KA&t=19m26s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkO1dwx2_KA&t=19m26s</a>