As you belly up to the tasting bar, you opt for a single varietal from California. Full-bodied with a hint of newly mown grass and a peppery finish, it’s a liquid delight. Yet you’d never want to drink a full glass of this stuff, made from a small fruit–but not a grape.

Olive oil: Increasingly, consumers shower it with the passion and parlance once reserved for wine. To fuel that interest, specialty shops provide an array of oils that far surpass the extra virgin bottles found at most local supermarkets.

The appeal isn’t just culinary. Recent studies suggest olive oil may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and help prevent heart disease (by lowering bad cholesterol and raising good cholesterol; but this is not a bitter pill your doctor ordered. To help find what pleases your palate, we’ve highlighted a few olive-oil shops where you can sample 20 or more varieties. All three stores sell their products online, and they also share a consumer-friendly philosophy—namely, “Try before you buy.”

Oilerie
4083 Main Street, Fish Creek, WI

In the spring of 2003, while traveling in the Netherlands, Curt Campbell saw a street vendor selling fresh olive oil from earthenware crocks. Interesting idea, he thought. Less than a week later in Poland, he noticed another retailer selling freshly-bottled olive oil– this time, in the basement of a department store, using stainless steel containers.

“That sealed the deal for me,” says Campbell. He already owned a successful spice shop with his wife, Amy Jo, and fresh olive oil seemed like an ideal complement to the store’s products. So in May 2004, he introduced three stainless steel containers of olive oil for customers to sample and purchase. Says Campbell: “I never thought the olive oil would eclipse my spice business.”

But it did, and now Oilerie, based in Door County, is filled with more than 20 varieties, with most prices ranging from $10 to $15 for a 375 ml bottle. Customers can help themselves to olive oil samples, which they dispense from stainless steel containers into small paper cups.

That’s a new concept for many folks. But Campbell explains that when olive oil is sampled with bread, it hampers the tasting experience. For one thing, bread gets stale quickly, but even the freshest loaf will mask oil’s true range of flavor.

After customers choose a favorite, it’s bottled and tagged with the oil type and date of purchase.

The shop carries product from regions including Australia, Greece, Spain, Tunisia, and California. “South Africa is going to be a big player [in olive oil] too,” says Campbell. He knows that in most consumers’ minds, Italy has the strongest link to olive oil—so they’re surprised to learn that the “from Italy” label usually just means the product was packaged in Italy, and that the “from Italy” oil originated in Spain or another country. “Italy consumes more olive oil domestically than it can produce, so it’s hard to get real Italian olive oil in the U.S.,” he says.

With each purchase, customers also receive olive oil recipes. If you run out of ideas, though, just ask Campbell: “At home, we spread it on toast instead of butter, we use it to make popcorn…we use it for everything.”

The Olive Tap
308 Old McHenry Road, Long Grove, IL

As a boy, Rick Petrocelly spent many hours helping out at his family’s Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh, and frequently accompanied his father to a local market to purchase freshly-bottled olive oil. Today, he’s the one selling it. A former healthcare executive, Petrocelly, 56, opened The Olive Tap in July with his wife Kathi. The shop typically carries about 20 oils, all stored in stainless steel tanks and bottled fresh for customers. “When people taste fresh, pure extra-virgin olive oil, they’re hooked,” he says.

Petrocelly brings in new varieties every three months—one recent oil was a gold-medal winner from the L.A. County Fair—and while he works closely with his supplier to find oils from around the globe, he also has the shop’s six employees taste oils before they’re added to the product lineup.

For those who’ve never sampled olive oil from a small paper cup before, Petrocelly has a few tips.
Step one: Pour a small amount of oil in the cup and warm it briefly with your hands. “Inhale, see what kind of nose it has,” he says.
Step two: Place a drop of oil on the tip of your tongue, to experience the forward flavor.
Step three: Take a couple more drops from the cup, let it linger on your tongue, and swallow. “With the last taste, you get the depth of flavor.”

If you cough while tasting, that’s actually a good thing. The peppery bite that prompts coughing also indicates fresh oil from healthy, well-processed olives.

Ta-Ze
520 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

At Ta-Ze, you’ll find about 40 Turkish olive oils that are already bottled, but customers can still sample any of the products before making a purchase. The Chicago shop is the first U.S. location in a growing international franchise, with two stores in Canada and four in Turkey, where the company is based (Ta Ze means “fresh” in Turkish).

Don’t know your refined olive oil from cold-pressed? Ta-Ze has a monthly $30 tasting class, where participants try various oils and also learn how they’re produced (Example: Olive trees complete their most fertile growth cycle at 35 years, but will continue to give fruit for hundreds of years). Participants also take home a 500 ml olive oil bottle of their choice; the cost is included in the class fee. The sessions officially last 90 minutes, but customers regularly stay well over 2 hours. “We have some wine and cheese, so it’s more like a casual party,” says Didem Gurevin-Tapban, president of the U.S. franchise. “It’s like wine tasting—it’s becoming a fun thing to do.” Ta-Ze also hosts private tasting parties for 10 or more.

–Sandra Swanson

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