Most “Extra Virgin” Olive Oil Isn’t (Extra Virgin)
Ours is pressed hours after harvest, in the valley where it grew. 100% Koroneiki from Sifis Sklavakis' groves — and the lab report to prove it, published here, before you buy.
Total polyphenols
6.7 oz Trees over 100 years
EU OrganicGR-BIO-03 · BIOHELLAS
USDA OrganicCertified by BIOHELLAS S.A.
PDO MessaraPOC/5035-16835.25
Lab-tested every batchPesticide residues: none detected
- Hand-numberedBatches of 2,234 and 2,355
What are you pouring it on?
Four ways people use it. Each one shows the bottle that fits it best.
One tablespoon a day. Straight, or over whatever you're eating.
That's the whole routine. So we built the subscription around it: a delivery lands about when the last bottle runs out.
Subscribe & save 10%
Three EVOO Centenarian, every six weeks.
$54
$60
3 × Greek Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 100-Year-Old-Trees, every delivery
- 10% off every delivery, for as long as you keep it
- Ships free
- Skip, move or cancel any time from your account
The EU allows olive oil one health claim, and only above a measured line.
Olive oil polyphenols contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress.
The claim needs at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives per 20 g of oil, taken daily. Ours is measured on every batch by an independent lab, and the report is published here with the test date on it.
Most extra virgin olive oil isn't.
Not because the law is unclear. Because almost nobody publishes what would let you check.
An oil can be four times as acidic as ours and still be sold to you as extra virgin. The grade is a box, not a grade.
No harvest date on the label
Olive oil is juice. It has a season. A bottle carrying only a best-before can be three harvests old and still sit on the shelf legally.
No variety, no valley
"Product of Italy" can mean olives from four countries, blended and bottled in one. Ours is one variety, one valley, one press.
No chemical analysis
Acidity, polyphenols, pesticide residues. The lab runs them on every batch. Almost nobody shows you the sheet. Ours is published.
Pressed by mechanical means only — no heat, no chemicals
Free acidity at or below 0.80%
A full chemical analysis in the laboratory
A panel of trained tasters must find it free of defects, and find fruitiness, bitterness and pungency
Regulated origin, traceability and best-before on the label
Outside the EU, the tasting panel is usually not required and verification is uneven. The two words on the bottle are the same. The test behind them is not.
If it makes you cough, that's the good part.
The pepper at the back of your throat comes from oleocanthal, one of the polyphenols. The more there is, the harder it catches. EVOO Centenarian catches hard.
- Pour a spoonful. Warm it in your hand for a minute.
- Smell it first: green almond, cut grass, artichoke.
- Sip, pull in a little air, and swallow.
- Wait for the catch in your throat. A flat, greasy finish means the polyphenols are gone.
Sifis Sklavakis was doing this long before we had a label.
Fourth generation in the Messara Valley. He studied agricultural engineering at the University of Thessaly and then went back to the same groves his great-grandfather worked. He decides when to pick. He runs the press.
He is the reason your bottle tells you everything: when the olives were harvested, who pressed them, where the oil was bottled, and which number you are holding. Most bottles on the shelf only tell you when to throw them out.
A shot of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, every night before bed. That's my secret. Now it's yours.
What people say once they've tasted it.
Shown exactly as customers wrote them.
Learn to read a label. Hear when the next harvest lands.
- How to spot old oil on the shelf, in two minutes
- The lab analysis for every new bottling, when it's published