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The Complete Olive Oil Guide
Everything you need to know about choosing, understanding, and cooking with great olive oil.
What Makes Greek Olive Oil Different
Greece holds some of the strictest acidity standards in the world, and its producers — especially smaller family estates — tend to prioritize single-varietal, single-harvest oil over blending for volume. The result is oil that is traceable, distinctive, and consistently high in quality. Most Greek EVOO comes from the Koroneiki varietal, grown in the Peloponnese and Crete.
Read the full guide to Greek olive oilUnderstanding Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Extra Virgin is the highest grade of olive oil — cold-extracted by mechanical means only, with free acidity below 0.8%, and verified by both chemical and sensory testing. Despite the label being widely used, independent testing has found that a significant share of imported oil sold as “extra virgin” fails to meet the actual standard. Knowing what to look for on the label matters.
Learn what extra virgin actually meansWhat “Single Estate” Means
Single estate oil comes from one producer, one grove or region, and one harvest — not blended from multiple countries or farms. Most supermarket olive oil is blended for price consistency, which trades traceability for uniformity. Single estate oil has a distinct, harvest-specific character you can trace back to its source.
Understand single estate sourcingThe Koroneiki Olive
Koroneiki is the most widely planted olive varietal in Greece, prized for its robust peppery finish, fresh grassy aroma, and high polyphenol content. It thrives in the dry Mediterranean climate of the Peloponnese and Crete, and produces oil with a bright golden-green color and a lingering, complex finish.
Explore the Koroneiki varietalCooking With Olive Oil
In Greek cooking, great olive oil is used raw as a finishing oil as often as it is used to cook — drizzled over salads, whisked into sauces, and ladled over soups just before serving. A few traditional recipes show how central it is to the cuisine: horiatiki, ladolemono, fasolada, and dakos each depend on the quality of the oil itself.
See traditional Greek recipes