California Olive Ranch "Destination" EVOO

Olive oil isn't always what it appears to be. The mass-market brands exported from Italy, for example, are mostly made from olives grown in Spain or elsewhere, and merely bottled in Italy. One must read the label very carefully to see just what one is really getting.

I'd become fond of California Olive Ranch because it is made 100% from olives grown in California. Until this year, that is. I saw with some trepidation that the California Olive Ranch EVOO at my local supermarket now says "Destination" on the label. It is now a blend of California oil with EVOO from Argentina and elsewhere. According to their website, they are doing this to address the problem of wide swings in the volume of olive production in CA. They claim that the new blend tastes the same as the pure Californian EVOO. I haven't had a chance to test this claim yet. They do still produce 100% California EVOO, but only in their top-of-the-line single-orchard series.

The cynic in me suspects they're just trying to up their production volume. But I do respect (and thank) them for at least being upfront about what they've done on the label.

-Paul W.

I was using Olive Oil for most cooking, then I read about an English farm growing, extracting and bottling Rape Seed oil* with the names and map co-ordinates of the fields their Rape was grown in, so I went to a farm shop, bought some and now use Rape Seed oil on the grounds of why use something grown far away when there's a local product from an identifiable named source.

But for you, California and Italy are about the same distance away, and Spain is even closer

Now I use EVOO only in Mediterranean dishes,sunflower oil when a neutral oil is required and rapeseed for everything else

* I believe it's called Canola in the USA

[Jenise]

Interesting, Paul. I pretty much use California Olive Ranch exclusively as my everyday olive oil, one that says on the label it's very robust though I can't think what word they use (some are medium weight, some are light) though I still buy other single vineyard type olive oils from Italy for condiment purposes and use Safflower oil when I want neutral. I'll have to look at the label--have to admit I've wondered how they could produce so much olive oil in California. Used to mail order my COR oils, and now I can buy them at the supermarket.

There used to be miles and miles of olive ranches along I-5 near Corning. Not so much any more, but I've seen olive groves west of Fresno lately. The Central Valley grows LOTS of different stuff.

[Jenise]

John, I've driven through and seen those. And while it looks volumnous from the road, it's still hard to imagine that it's enough to put olives and olive oil in every supermarket in the country.

...and now use Rape Seed oil on the grounds of why use something grown far away when there's a local product from an identifiable named source.

...

* I believe it's called Canola in the USA

I like the idea of a local product, too, although all oils are not interchangeable. Some have higher smoking points, some are mono-unsaturated, etc.

Yes, rapeseed oil is called canola in the US.

Interesting, Paul. I pretty much use California Olive Ranch exclusively as my everyday olive oil

I use COR exclusively as my everyday olive oil, too. The new product blended with non-Californian oils prominently says "Destination" on the front label.

I don't care for the taste or smell of rapeseed oil, so I never use it. I use peanut oil as my "neutral" cooking oil.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, my neutral every-day oil needs to be able to refrigerate well due to my ever-present jar of secret sauce: a seasoned oil & vinegar dressing for salads. Peanut oil partially solidifies, so for that reason alone I buy safflower oil instead.

Speaking of peanut oil, a long ago regular here once got her hands on EVPO--extra virgin peanut oil. OMG was it good. She lived in Virginia and a local peanut farmer trialed some so I got a bottle. Really strong, round peanut flavor, deep yellow-gold color. Unfortunately he decided it wasn't viable to produce.

Yes, re the 'Destination' thing. Btw, minutes after commenting on your initial post about same, an ad for it popped up in my Facebook feed. No accident, of course.

I've never knowingly had EVPO, but the peanut oil imported from China that one can find in oriental markets tends to have a strong peanut aroma and flavor. Domestic US peanut oil tends to be neutral in aroma and flavor, although I found some minimally-processed peanut oil at Whole Foods that was similar to the Chinese oils.

-Paul W.

I used to drop in on the Olive Pit in Corning to graze the olive tasting bar on the way home from racing at Laguna Seca, They weren't then, and aren't now a paragon of good taste - they include things like chocolate flavoured olive oil.

Wonder how that would go with that other bastion of taste, Rapazzini Winery in Gilroy, that used to market garlic wine.....had a bottle of that for many years, sold in a net bag with some heads of garlic. Traded them back and forth with a friend on our respective birthdays, neither of us having the guts to actually open it.

Wonder how that would go with that other bastion of taste, Rapazzini Winery in Gilroy, that used to market garlic wine.....had a bottle of that for many years, sold in a net bag with some heads of garlic. Traded them back and forth with a friend on our respective birthdays, neither of us having the guts to actually open it.

Ah, the old Hobbit custom of mathoms.

-Paul W.

My garage was a museum of mathoms - parts collected over the decades and with every car I restored, the walls somehow grew closer in as a new layer of spares was deposited - a case of sentimental sedimentation. When we moved I went cold turkey and abandoned or donated huge amounts of stuff.

Only problem is that I can't find anything in the stuff I brought with me, and the old fear of finding a part right after I had gone out and purchased one stays with me.

Same issue with the wine cellar - old wines forgotten about for decades and possibly heading over the hill unnoticed. Of course getting it all on Cellartracker has helped considerably.

Tolkien certainly had a keen sense of human (and Hobbit) nature when he wrote his books!