The Concept of “Terroir” Isn’t Just for Winemaking. We Use it for Olive Oil, too!

The word “terroir”, which is a term most commonly used within the winemaking world, is derived from the French word “terre” which means land.

In winemaking, terroir is used to describe how all of the physical elements of the sense of “place” (meaning, the land where the grapes are grown and harvested) can affect the flavor, character, or texture of a particular wine. Everything from soil composition, sunlight, temperature, elevation, or the vineyard’s proximity to bodies of water—even living organisms growing in and around the vines—help to shape the “character” of a particular wine.

Basically, the concept of “terroir” helps to define a particular wine’s sense of place, and that place helps to tell the wine’s unique, individual story. The concept of terroir and its sense of “place” is similar when making extra virgin olive oil. While a wine with good “terroir” will impart certain flavors, aromas, and a richness that is unique to its location, climate, and growing and harvest conditions, so does olive oil.

Italy produces approximately 300,000 tons of olive oil each year making the country one of the top EU exporters. Furthermore, Italy uses roughly 1.1 million hectares of cultivated land for growing olives that will later be turned into olive oil. While olive production is particularly prominent in Southern Italy such as Sicily or Puglia, where it accounts for about 80% of the country’s entire harvest, olives are grown in many regions all over Italy. From north coastal Liguria with its cliffs and seaside villages to the rolling hills and rich, abundant countryside of Tuscany, each olive oil producing region in Italy maintains its own unique “terroir” which, in turn, is reflected in its own unique aromas, flavors, and textures of the olive oils it produces.

Take a moment to reflect on that last drizzle of extra virgin olive oil you tasted. How would you describe its aroma, its texture, and most of all, its flavor?

Did it taste sweet, floral, peppery, or nutty? What specific flavor notes did it have on the palate? Was it stone fruit, green apple, citrus, perhaps even pine?

Also, interestingly, many of the same colorful descriptions of flavor can apply to either wine tasting or olive oil tasting. So, the next time you dip a piece of crusty bread into that plate of extra virgin olive oil, consider where it comes from, where the olives were grown, and how the unique “terroir” of that particular region gives the oil its own special flavor and sense of place.

At Vignoli, the terroir of our handcrafted extra virgin olive oils is reflected in their exceptional flavor.

From our PGI Sicily with its delicate flavor of freshly picked tomatoes, vegetables, and bitter spicy herbs to our bold and exciting PGI Puglia with its intense flavor of white almonds, earthy artichokes, and freshly cut grass, to our fresh and clean PGI Tuscany with its ripe fruit flavors and a hint of spiciness, all of our extraordinary olive oils reflect their own unique sense of place and terroir.

Pick your favorite flavor!