Find real
olive oil.

Check the label for four things: a harvest date (not merely a 'best by' date), the specific region or estate where the olives grew, the olive varietals, and the producer's name. An oil that answers all four has nothing to hide. Then taste it. Real extra virgin olive oil smells green and alive — cut grass, tomato leaf, green apple — and leaves a peppery catch at the back of your throat. If it smells of nothing, or of crayons, wet cardboard or stale nuts, it is old or defective whatever the front label claims.

No. The popular claim that real olive oil solidifies in the refrigerator and fake oil stays liquid is not true. Different olive varieties and different fatty-acid profiles thicken at different temperatures, and some adulterated oils solidify perfectly well. There is no reliable home test for adulteration — it takes laboratory analysis. Provenance, harvest date and taste are the practical tools available to a shopper.

Olive oil is a fruit juice and starts declining the day it is pressed. A 'best by' date is a bottler's estimate, often set two years after the olives were picked, and it can be printed on oil that was already old when bottled. The harvest date tells you the oil's actual age. Most extra virgin olive oil is at its best within 12 to 18 months of harvest. Veritat does not certify any oil that fails to state one.

Not necessarily. Labelling rules allow an oil to be described by the country where it was bottled or blended, even when the olives were grown elsewhere and shipped in. Phrases like 'Bottled in Italy' or 'Product of the EU' can cover a blend from several countries. It is not always deceptive, but it sounds far more specific than it is. Ask where the olives grew — the region, ideally the mill.

Yes. The belief that extra virgin olive oil is unsuitable for cooking is a myth. Its smoke point sits comfortably above normal sautéing and roasting temperatures, and its natural antioxidants make it more stable under heat than many refined oils. Mediterranean households fry with it daily. Keep your finest bottles for finishing, where the flavour is visible, but cooking with good oil is entirely normal.

Aim to use it within 12 to 18 months of harvest, and within about two months of opening. It does not become unsafe, it becomes dull — rancid oil smells waxy or like old nuts. Store it away from heat, light and air: a cupboard rather than beside the hob, dark glass or tin rather than clear glass, cap firmly closed. Refrigeration is unnecessary, and cloudiness in the cold is harmless.