What is Virgin Olive Oil? The Olive fruit and its juice.

The olive is the fruit of the olive tree. Botanically, it is a drupe, like a cherry, plum or peach.

Like all drupes, it consists of an outer skin (the epicarp), a fleshy middle layer (the mesocarp), and a hard inner stone (the endocarp), which contains the seed.

The olive has two characteristics that make it unique among drupes. Firstly, its flesh is not sweet but bitter (so don't be tempted to eat an olive straight from the tree – you'll quickly regret it!). Secondly, and more importantly, its flesh contains a large quantity of oil.

This is significant because the oil can be extracted using only mechanical processes, such as crushing, pressing or centrifugation. By contrast, extracting oil from seeds generally requires the use of chemical solvents.

The juice obtained from olives using only mechanical processes is known as Virgin Olive Oil.

Like any fruit juice, virgin olive oils are of high quality when they are produced from healthy olives harvested at the optimum stage of ripeness, processed shortly after harvesting, and extracted using suitable production methods.

According to their quality, virgin olive oils are classified into the following categories (from highest to lowest):

1. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the highest-quality category of olive oil.
2. Virgin Olive Oil, the second-highest quality category.
3. Lampante Olive Oil, which is not suitable for human consumption.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Virgin Olive Oil are commercial categories whose classification requirements are defined by legislation.

By contrast, Lampante Olive Oil, or simply lampante, is not suitable for consumption and must be refined before it can be consumed. After refining, it is no longer classified as a virgin olive oil.

This classification can be slightly confusing because all three are types of virgin olive oil, while one of the categories is itself called Virgin Olive Oil. To avoid confusion, throughout this website we use the plural term virgin olive oils when referring to the general group, and the singular term Virgin Olive Oil only when referring to the second-highest quality category.