Blend or single variety: which olive oil to choose

Olive varieties (“cultivars”) are countless: in Marche alone about twenty are grown. Each gives an oil with a different character. Hence the two great families of extra virgin olive oil: single varieties and blends.

Single variety

It is made from the olives of one variety only. It has a recognisable character, telling of that cultivar and the land where it grows, and it changes more from one year to the next. It is the oil to taste and use raw, when you want a precise profile.

Blend

It is made from olives of several varieties that complement each other: one gives aroma, another body, another the balance between bitterness and pungency. The result is a harmonious, versatile oil, good raw and suited to cooking too. In Marche it is the tradition: many of the region’s oils come from combining several local cultivars.

Which is better?

Neither, in itself: quality depends on the olives, the time of harvest, how quickly they reach the mill and how the oil is processed and stored. They are two different ways of expressing a land, and it is worth having both in the kitchen.

Our two oils

• IL CONTE Blend: it combines four cultivars of the Marche tradition, Raggia, Mignola, Rosciola and Orbetana. It is the oil for all home cooking: raw on salads, pulses and fish, and in cooking for bases, sauces and oven dishes.
• IL CONTE Raggia single variety: only Raggia olives, the typical variety of the province of Ancona, known around Jesi also as Mandolina. It is used mostly raw, on bruschetta, vegetables, fresh cheeses, white meat and boiled meats.

Try it

The best way to understand the difference is to taste them side by side, perhaps with a pinzimonio: two little bowls, one of Blend and one of Raggia, and the same raw vegetables.