Olive oil prices are soaring. These are the bottles worth buying

The price of oil is on everyone’s lips, but here I’m talking specifically about olive oil. Thanks to adverse weather in olive-growing countries prices have soared in recent years – yet this week the boss of Filippo Berio accused supermarkets of not dropping theirs in line with wholesale olive oil prices, which have started to fall.

Then there are the high-end versions, which now compete with fine claret in terms of price. Recently, Selfridges sold out of Château d’Estoublon’s olive oil at £450 for 4.5 litres, and it’s not even the department store’s most expensive – Federicus II Stupor Mundi comes in at £98.99 for 500ml, nearly double the price of the Estoublon.

Is any oil really worth £200 a litre? No olive oil is cheap, granted. Drought and disease have sent prices soaring over the past four years, only slowing in recent months. Looking back at my tasting notes from three and half years ago, two litres of Sainsbury’s extra-virgin olive oil cost £8.20: now it’s £15, a rise of more than 80 per cent, and well above the standard price inflation over the same period of about 15 per cent.

Time to consult an expert palate. I picked up a range of bottles and headed to Brighton to visit the Grande Dame of olive oil, Judy Ridgway. She has quarter of a century’s experience as an independent olive oil taster, including as a judge and a teacher.

We sniffed and slurped our way through nine oils. Ridgway pointed out flavours of apples, pears, leaves, grass and tomatoes, plus the pepperiness that may make you cough but is an indication of high polyphenols, the source of olive oil’s health benefits. “But they degrade over time, so always choose an oil as close to harvest as possible,” she says. Check the use by date, usually 18 months to two years after harvest.

In the end, what matters is not price but flavour, ideally “a marriage of fruitiness, bitterness and pepper, mixed together in an enjoyable way,” according to Ridgway. “The point is, do you like it?”

I tested a range of oils, from budget to luxury, to find out.

Olive oil taste test resultsBudget supermarketWinnerMedium rangeWinnerTop endWinner

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