The answer is Greek because they choose not to buy oil from other sources to mix their olive oil to stretch their bottling capacity. The producers may work in a co-op, but it is most likely with other members in the same region, with the same characteristics. Even some of the expensive Italian oils are blended with Spanish oils, and you are paying for the 'Made in Italy' stigma. It's like buying champagne made with grapes from the Niagara region. Not the same. The best oils are virgin, cold pressed, unfiltered, and come from a single grove. This is hard to tell from the bottle.

This is a question that most extra virgin olive oil lovers must have wondered several times. You are inside a supermarket looking at the best brands olive oil on a shelf with more than ten to twenty varieties, in different bottles, brands, origins (Greece, Italy, and Spain) and colours. How can you understand which is the best imported olive oil? Which one is healthier and has the best taste? Do I need to spend the more money to get that bottle instead of this more affordable one? The answer is simple! You want the best car, the best cell phone, the best house… but your food? Your health? Are you going to buy the cheapest and maybe the unhealthiest olive oil? Of course not, the price especially for the imported extra virgin olive oil, depends on many circumstances. The most important is how the extra virgin olive oil is produced. If you collect the olives by mechanical means, the fruit is being destroyed and loses its nutrition! The 1Vourakes Farm olive fruit is collected by hand so that the olive is not damaged! This is costlier due to more labour and time, but it is the best way to keep the best quality for Extra virgin olive oil, and as a result, the Best brand of extra virgin olive oil is the Greek variety!. Our olive oil is first COLD pressed from Koroneiki olives, and around groves located on the slopes of PYLOS and KALAMATA mountains which run in Peloponnese. 1 Vourakes Farm olive oil comes from top quality olives that are harvested by hand from November to January and traditionally cold pressed. This process is much more expensive than collecting olives by machine, by doing this our olives are not destroyed and keeps the quality at top levels and the acidity at the lowest levels in the world. With a few words, our olive oil products are 100% handmade and the best-imported brands!

Olive oil experts know two things. First, Italy as a country consumes and exports more olive oil than it produces. Easily you can understand that Italian olive oil producers often must import oil from Greece and Spain etc.! Italians are good at marketing the best brands of imported olive oil. What usually happens is the Italian olive oil you find in supermarkets comes or is mixed with olive oils from other countries. In worst cases, the olive oil can be blended with other bad oils… Lovers of olive oil have always wanted to know which olive oil offers the maximum benefits and whether there are any differences between Spanish, Italian, or Greek olive oils. There is a difference in the taste as olive trees in different regions as countries belong to different species and the soil conditions and climate also accounts for these subtle differences in taste. Spanish olive oil has a golden yellow colour and has a fruity and nutty flavour, while Italian oil tends to be dark green with an herbal aroma and a grassy flavour. Greek olive oil that tends to be green and packs a strong flavour and aroma. Research indicates the levels of cycloartenol, a sterol that lowers cholesterol levels are higher in Italian virgin olive oil when compared to Spanish virgin olive oil. Greek olive oil contains more polyphenols than extra virgin oils of other origins. Polyphenols are antioxidants which can reduce the risk of developing several other health problems including coronary artery disease. As they appear to block the action of some enzymes linked to cancer, they have also been linked with cancer reduction. The differences between Spanish, Greek, and Italian olive oils are not easily noticeable as these are usually mixed and sold in the same bottle. While the product may be labelled as Italian, it is a combination of oils from different countries, including Spain, Greece, and Italy; only the blending and packaging is done in Italy. This is since the per capita consumption of olive oil in Italy far exceeds what the country can produce. To meet the international demand for this oil, the country imports olive oil from Spain and Greece. Ultimately, it is the freshness, the quality, the aroma, the acidity, and the taste that makes all the difference between the different kinds of olive oil.

Greece is a country located at the tip of the Balkan peninsula, at the crossroads of the European Union. Nine geographic regions comprise Greece: Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean islands (including the Dodecanese and Cyclades), Thrace, Crete, and the Ionian Islands. 1Vourakes Farm certified extra virgin olive oil comes from the Peloponnese, specifically the southwestern area in Messinia. Our family estates are located in the villages of Harakopio and Finikounta. The microclimate is ideal for Koroneiki olive production, which eventually turns into olive oil. Lovers of olive oil have always wanted to know which olive oil offers the maximum benefits and whether there are any differences between Spanish, Italian, or Greek olive oils. There is a difference in the taste as olive trees in different regions as countries belong to different species and the soil conditions and climate also accounts for these subtle differences in taste. Spanish olive oil has a golden yellow colour, while Italian oil tends to be dark green. Spanish olive oil has a fruity and nutty flavour while the Italian variety has a herbal aroma and a grassy flavour. Greek olive oil that tends to be the colour green and packs a strong flavour and aroma.

Research indicates the levels of cycloartenol, a sterol that lowers cholesterol levels are higher in Italian virgin olive oil when compared to Spanish virgin olive oil. Greek olive oil contains more polyphenols than extra virgin oils of other origins. Polyphenols are antioxidants which can reduce the risk of developing several other health problems including coronary artery disease. As they appear to block the action of some enzymes linked to cancer, they have also been linked with cancer reduction. The differences between Spanish, Greek, and Italian olive oils are not easily noticeable as these are usually mixed and sold in the same bottle. While the product may be labelled as Italian, it is a combination of oils from different countries, including Spain, Greece, and Italy; only the blending and packaging is done in Italy. This is since the per capita consumption of olive oil in Italy far exceeds what the country can produce. For Italy to meet international demand for its oil, the country imports olive oil from Spain and Greece. Ultimately, it is the freshness, the quality, the freshness, the acidity, and the taste that makes all the difference between the different kinds of olive oil. Greece plays an important role in global olive oil production, but little of its olive oil enters world markets as a Greek product. Rather, most Greek olive oil is consumed domestically (mostly through direct sales to consumers), as Greece has the highest per capita olive oil consumption in the world. Most of the remainder is exported to major bottlers in Italy for blending with extra virgin olive oils from various sources. Greek extra virgin oil is known among blenders and bottlers as a component that raises the overall quality and flavour profile of a blend. Recent industry and government initiatives seek to reduce the sector’s dependence on bulk exports to Italy and to increase competitiveness by focusing more on selling differentiated Greek product. Greece is the world’s third-largest olive oil producer, after Spain and Italy. Until recently, Greek production levels were subject to the alternate year bearing cycle of the olive tree, but the variation between crop years is now lower, likely due to the increased use of irrigation and pruning techniques that reduce the effects of this cycle. Greece has high costs of olive oil production, largely owing to its reliance on traditional, small-scale growing and milling methods. Several factors contribute to the high cost of producing olives. Greece has a prevalence of old groves with declining tree productivity and yields, resulting in high per-unit costs of production. Low yields are attributed to a lack of irrigation in most of the country’s olive groves. Further, wage rates are high and rising even as rates of labour productivity remain low. A Greek bank identified labour costs as a major limitation on Greece’s competitiveness in the olive oil industry. Also, only about half of olive growers are considered professional farmers and many operators rely on activities besides olive growing to supplement their income. Some only produce for personal consumption. Costs are also high in the milling sector, which, as noted earlier, is dominated by smaller mills using older technology, unable to benefit from economies of scale. Although production costs are high, Greece also enjoys a reputation for producing high-quality olive oil. In a good year, as much as 80 percent of Greek olive oil meets the standard for the extra virgin grade, the highest share in the Mediterranean. Even within the extra virgin category, Greek oils can be differentiated from others because they have desirable flavour profiles and score well on chemical tests measuring quality. This is partly because oil milled from Koroneiki olives tends to be the highest in polyphenol content and low in FFA among all olive oils. Greek oils are also considered among the fruitiest and most robust. As a result, they are in high demand by bottlers for blending with other extra virgin oils to raise the overall quality and increase the flavour of the final product. As California growers who have planted Koroneiki explain, “Blending Koroneiki into our other EVOO [extra virgin olive oils] ‘kicks up’ an oil’s flavour and fruitiness, giving the oil a better and more complex taste. Despite producing mostly high-quality extra virgin oil, most Greek oil is exported in bulk for blending, rather than as single-source branded products. This is where 1 Vourakes Farm olive oil is different. It is 100% pure Greek olive oil.

The Greek association of olive oil manufacturers attributes a reliance on bulk sales to a lack of consumer awareness of the quality of Greek oil in overseas markets, owing to the insufficient focus on consumer education and marketing on the part of Greek producers. As a result, at least 80 percent of exports are in bulk in a typical year. Most bulk exports are to Italy and used in blends by bottlers, and as much as 20 percent of the content of oil blended and bottled in Italy may be of Greek origin. This sales channel dates back many years and is firmly entrenched. Because producers have few alternative marketing outlets, Italian buyers often procure Greek oil at prices below market value with cash. Longer-term contracts are rare, a source of frustration for many non-Greek blenders who had experience purchasing Greek oil. While farmer cooperatives in Greece have attempted to increase the market power of the farmers, they generally “perform poorly, leaving room for private buyers to pay lower prices to producers.” An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the sector in Greece concluded, “A progressive reduction in the dependence of Greek olive oil on bulk exports to Italy is the key to significant improvement in its international success and the basis for a differentiation strategy that will increase the export price that can be garnered for the product.” Though Greece has made some progress in reducing the share of its exports flowing through the established Italian channel, product differentiation remains a major challenge for the Greek industry.” The Olive-Growing Sector is among the most important agricultural sectors in Greece, accounting for 20 percent of agricultural land and 60 percent of the total number of holdings. Olive holdings, the majority of which are small, total approximately 531,000. Most of the olive groves are dedicated to the production of olives for oil, although the olive table sector is also important in Greece. Some Greek olive varieties, such as Kalamata, are used for both oil production and table use, so it is difficult to separate the total olive-growing area based on its use. In general, however, Greece harvests at least 10 tons of oil olives for every ton of table olives each year. (Eurostat database (accessed March 8, 2013); IOC, 'Table 1: [EU] Production,' November 2012.) In general, Greece’s climate and soil are well-suited to olive growing, and olive oil is produced throughout the country. Greece produces a high share of extra virgin oil, much of it high quality, owing to its favourable climate and soil, reliance on olive varieties that tend to yield high-quality extra virgin oil, and timely harvesting and milling of olives. The regions of Crete and the Peloponnese (where 1Vourakes Farm olive oil is from) are the most concentrated growing areas, accounting for 65 percent of olive oil output. Most of the newer, intensive farms are in these regions. Greece relies more heavily on a single olive variety than Spain or Italy, with the Koroneiki olive accounting for about 80 percent of production. The Koroneiki variety produces high-quality oil for which there is strong demand. Other common varieties are Manaki and Athinolia, grown primarily in the Peloponnese. The average farm size in Greece is only 1.6 hectares, just slightly larger than in Italy. About 70 percent of Greece’s olive-growing land is considered “disadvantaged” by the EU, meaning that it is either steeply sloped or has other geographic features that make it difficult to farm. Often olive trees are the only crop that can be grown on the land. Because many farms are small and located on difficult terrain, most olives are hand harvested, and fewer Greek farmers employ modern production methods than either Spain or Italy. The sector’s low efficiency is reflected in the fact that Greece accounts for 22 percent of EU oil olive acreage, but just 14 percent of its olive oil production.

The most important is the taste difference. This because the olive trees in these countries belong to different species. Also, taste is often based on soil conditions and climate. Greece has the best climate all over the world and especially the area Kalamata which is in the province of Messinia and the Peloponnese peninsula. This way the extra virgin olive oil from Kalamata is PDO (Protected Destination of Origin) and chosen as the best extra virgin olive oil brand and no other country can use the name Kalamata or Koroneiki. Even if you are not a professional olive oil taster, you can understand the difference 1 Vourakes Farm olive oil and another country of origin olive oils. It is fresher olive oil, has the lowest acidity, best colour and aroma. Consumers of extra virgin olive oil surveys have shown that they choose Greek olive oil! This is the main difference between our 1 Vourakes Farm extra virgin olive oil produced and bottled in Greece and the other different types of olive oil.