Trial by Fire

You may think you ‘ve never tried it, but odds are you have (albeit in an dulterated form). I am referring to Greek extra virgin olive oil.

Greece devotes 60% of its cultivatable land to the olive tree. From these, more than 320,000 tons of olive oil is produced annually. More than 80% of this oil is extra virgin, making Greece the largest producer of extra virgin olive oil in the world. Spain and Italy make more olive oil in general, but as for extra virgin, Greece stands alone.Most of the production is consumed locally (Greeks consume more than 32 pounds of olive oil a year per capita!).

In recent years there have been signs that that bulk exports are slowly giving way to branded exports. Watching this, my first thought was – why did it take so long? Now, after the devastating – and deadly – fires of this past August, it looks like it might take even longer. 450,000 acres of land burned this summer, the majority of it in the Peloponnese, a peninsular region south of Athens. About a third of Greece‘s oil is produced here. Or, rather, was produced here. While initial government estimates claim that only 4% of Greece‘s average annual production will be lost this year, this relatively minor loss might be due to the fact that the harvest from surviving trees is predicted to be up 20% in 2007. As bumper crops go, this is a big one.

The rest, about a third, is exported. Little of these exports appear as Greek branded products. Most is sold in bulk to other EU countries, notably Italy. It is then often mixed with the local production (or not) and then bottled and ­sold as a home-grown product. So there is a good chance that that Italian olive oil you are so fond of may actually come, in whole or in part, from Greece.

Out of Greece‘s estimated 110 million olive trees, 4.5 million were recently burnt to the ground. It takes anywhere from 7 to 10 years for a newly planted olive tree to produce fruit. So even if it is only a 4% loss this year, following years could be far, far worse.

I haven‘t even touched on the subject of table olives: the Peloponnese is home to the famed Kalamata region and the olive that bears its name. This region was hit hard.

Here‘s what would help: rather than purchasing "Italian" olive oil, retailers might want to consider cutting out the middleman and buying Greek branded olive oils instead. There are plenty to choose from; many bulk suppliers also offer their own branded oils. Odds are the oil will be of a better quality (the Greeks generally don‘t mix their extra virgin with lower grades of oil nor have they yet discovered the scam of passing off doctored hazelnut oil as olive oil). Plus, it will cost less. Finally, purchasing Greek branded extra virgin olive oil will bring much needed revenues to a country that has been sorely tried this summer.