Walk down any oil aisle and three countries dominate the shelf: Spain, Italy and Greece. They are often treated as interchangeable, or ranked by reputation. The truth is more interesting, and it is printed in small type on the back of the bottle.
Spain: The Giant
Spain is the world's largest olive oil producer by a wide margin, in a typical year making close to half of all the olive oil on earth. Much of it comes from Andalusia, in the south, where olive groves run to the horizon.
Its best-known varieties each have a character of their own. Picual is robust, green and peppery. Arbequina is gentle, buttery and fruity. Hojiblanca sits between the two. Spain makes superb extra virgin oil and an enormous amount of everyday oil, and its scale means Spanish oil turns up in bottles that carry other countries' names.
Italy: The Bottler
Italy has the most famous olive oil reputation in the world, and hundreds of native olive varieties, among them Coratina, Frantoio and Leccino. Its best regional oils, from Tuscany, Puglia and Sicily, are among the finest anywhere.
But Italy also consumes and exports far more olive oil than it grows, so it imports large amounts from Spain, Greece, Tunisia and elsewhere. A great deal of oil sold under Italian brand names is bottled in Italy rather than grown there. That is legal, as long as the label says so, which is why the small print matters more than the flag on the front.
"Bottled in Italy" and "Product of Italy" are two very different promises.
Greece: The Extra Virgin Specialist
Greece is usually the third-largest producer, and its olive oil has a different profile from the other two. A large share of Greek production is extra virgin, a far higher proportion than in most producing countries, and Greeks eat more olive oil per person than almost anyone else.
One variety dominates: Koroneiki, a small olive grown across the Peloponnese and Crete. Its oil is typically green, grassy and peppery, and naturally rich in polyphenols, the compounds behind that peppery catch at the back of the throat. We wrote a whole article on why Koroneiki punches so far above its size.
For decades, much of Greece's best oil left the country in bulk and was blended and bottled elsewhere, very often in Italy. More Greek producers now bottle their own oil, under their own names, with the region and the estate on the tin.
The most oil. Picual, Arbequina, Hojiblanca. From bold and green to soft and buttery.
The most famous brands and hundreds of varieties. Check whether it was grown there or only bottled.
A high share of extra virgin. Koroneiki: green, grassy, peppery.
So Which Is Best?
Honestly, no country owns quality. There is outstanding oil from all three, and disappointing oil from all three. Origin tells you about the likely style. It does not tell you whether the oil in your bottle is fresh, unblended, or extra virgin in anything but name.
What does tell you that is a set of details that any serious producer, from any country, is happy to print.
A single country of origin, not "a blend of EU and non-EU oils".
A harvest date, not just a best-before date. Use it within 12 to 18 months of harvest.
A named region or estate, and ideally the olive variety.
Light-proof packaging: a tin or dark glass, never clear plastic.
Published lab results, if you want to be sure it is what it says.
Our own tins tick those boxes: Greek Koroneiki from named family estates in the Peloponnese, harvest-dated, lab-tested with the results published, and packed in tins that keep the light out. For more on reading the small print, see How to Read an Olive Oil Label.
Greek Koroneiki, Harvest-Dated
Cold-extracted extra virgin from a family estate in Amaliada, in the Peloponnese. Lab-tested every season. Three and five litre tins.
Production shares vary from year to year with the harvest; figures here describe typical years. Sources: International Olive Council production statistics; EU olive oil labelling rules on designation of origin.