1. The Complete Guide to Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Before I moved to Tuscany thirty years ago (yikes!), olive oil was simply... olive oil.

Like most people, I cooked with it, drizzled it over salads and never gave it much thought. I certainly couldn't have told you why one oil tasted peppery while another was buttery, or why my Tuscan friends became almost emotional when the new harvest arrived each autumn. Living here slowly changed that. Every October and November, I watched families disappear into the olive groves. Conversations turned to rainfall, harvest dates and which mill they were using. Friends would proudly hand me a bottle of fresh oil and insist that I taste it—not on a salad, but on a simple piece of toasted bread, or even by itself in a small cup! "Now that's olive oil," they'd say. I smiled... but if I'm honest, I wasn't entirely sure what I was supposed to be tasting. But the more questions I asked, the more I realised I had only scratched the surface.

My curiosity eventually led me to study olive oil professionally and become a certified olive oil taster through ONAOO (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Olio di Oliva), Italy's National Organization of Olive Oil Tasters. But even after countless tastings, visits to olive mills and harvests in our own olive grove at Campo Sasso, I still feel like I'm learning every season. That's one of the things I love most about it. The deeper you go, the more there is to discover. This guide is my attempt to share that journey—not as a technical manual, but as an invitation to understand one of Tuscany's oldest and most treasured traditions.

Here in Tuscany, olive oil is every bit as much a part of our culture as wine.

Every autumn, the shorter days are filled with the sound of olive harvest shakers, the chatter of families gathering olives from the nets, and the occasional tractor rumbling through the countryside with crates of freshly picked olives bound for the local mill.

Within hours of harvesting, olives arrive at the mill where they are transformed into one of Tuscany's greatest treasures: fresh extra virgin olive oil bursting with aromas of freshly cut grass, green almonds, artichokes and herbs.

It's one of the purest foods we make.

No fermentation.

No blending of ingredients.

No cooking.

Simply fresh olives transformed into juice.

Village squares come alive as people gather to taste the season's first oils, proudly comparing this year's harvest with last year's. In larger towns, you'll often find a festa or sagra dedicated to the new olive oil (and often the new wine too), where locals and visitors celebrate with bruschetta drizzled in vivid green oil, roasted chestnuts, and whatever other autumn treasures the season has to offer—perhaps fresh truffles or mushrooms from the nearby woods.

I've come to realise that olive oil is a lot like wine.

The more you understand about where it comes from and how it's made, the more every bottle tells a story.

And once you taste truly fresh extra virgin olive oil, it's surprisingly difficult to go back.

This guide will take you from the olive tree to the bottle, explaining how Tuscan extra virgin olive oil is produced, why it tastes the way it does, how to recognise quality, and why Italians become so excited when the new harvest finally arrives.

Learning to Notice

When I first arrived in Tuscany, every bottle of olive oil tasted more or less the same.

Today, I notice things I never even knew existed.

The variety of olives growing on the tree.

Whether the harvest started early or late.

How quickly the olives reached the mill.

Whether the oil smells of freshly cut grass, green tomato leaves or almonds.

The pleasant bitterness that tells me the olives were picked at just the right moment.

The peppery finish that makes me cough ever so slightly—and smile.

None of these are secrets.

They're simply things I hadn't learned to notice yet.

My hope is that, by the time you reach the end of this guide, you'll start noticing them too.

And once you do, every bottle of olive oil will tell you a little more about where it came from and the people who made it.