Tasting > Sensory analysis

Sensory analysis of olive oils

Vegetable oils are formed basically of glyceridic compounds (95-99,7%) and minor compounds (0,3 – 5%) which play an extremely important role, both from the nutritional – organoleptic point of view and from the analytical side, in differentiating their biological origin and market classification.
Talking about the quality of an olive oil, and more so of an extra virgin oil, entails the careful evaluation of a whole series of parameters, both chemical-physical and organoleptic, which have been brought to perfection over years and years of careful evaluations.
We must remember that olive oil is the first food product for which sensory analysis, based on the Panel Test system, constitutes a market selection factor; the EEC Regulation n. 2568/91 in the footnote XII entitled “ Organoleptic Evaluation of virgin olive oil” states that a virgin olive oil must undergo tasting, carried out in a particular way, in order to determine an evaluation by  “Panel Test”.

An organization of tasters like the ONAOO will obviously be  favourable to the need to express a sensory judgment in order to evaluate the qualities of an olive oil. However, a desire to quantify quality by using a number seems to us a sort of complicated mental aberration which contributes nothing to the defence of the consumer. We point out that oil is a simple condiment and none of us would ever invite a friend home to drink a glass of extra virgin or lamp oil.

For this reason the EEC is currently working on a new evaluation card, elaborated by the C.O.I. (Consiglio Oleico Internazionale – International Oil Council), which no longer requires points to be assigned but the indication, on an oriented segment, of the intensity perceived for each of the negative and positive attributes.

Olive oil is thus classified as follows:

In an article in “Food technologies”, prof. Giovanni Amelotti of the University of Milan emphasizes: “…the main aspects which, the in world of olive oil, characterize quality are  organoleptic characteristics, stability of oxidization, absence of contaminants, such as phyto-pharmaceuticals, phyto-hormones, anti-parasitics, hydrocarburic solvents and derivatives of chlorine, and, naturally, nutritional characteristics  expressed in terms of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, the presence of phytosterols, vitamins and natural antioxidants.” 

As yet we do not possess a chemical-physical instrument which can measure every single component that makes up the infinite aromatic tonalities of an extra virgin oil, so sensory analysis is fundamental. Through the organoleptic characteristics of an oil, we are able to distinguish between products that analytical determinations could pronounce identical.
“Without a doubt – continues Prof. Amelotti – a Panel Test, even though weak or defenceless against certain sly actions or illegal situations in the market of edible olive oils, represents the perfect completion of the chemical-analytical picture of an extra virgin oil.”
It seems to us that clarification and simplification of this methodology is long overdue: its only aim is that of establishing the presence or absence of particular defects, without expressing a numerical judgment which too often reflects the subjective experience of the taster, thus losing the object of the exercise, which was total objectivity, the real guarantee for the consumer.

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