ric Verdier looks heavenward as he rolls a generous spoonful of olive oil from Provence’s Baux valley on his tongue, making a slurping noise as if it were wine. He gulps it with gusto, even though it’s the ninth oil we have sampled during our tasting session.

“We’re biting into fresh almond” he declares.
Verdier is the taster for the French olive oil specialists Oliviers & Co, with two shops in Paris and one in Saint Tropez. He not only selected the 15 oils from six countries currently displayed on the shelves in slim glass bottles or beautifully labelled tins, but tastes them every 10 days to be sure they are at their peak of flavour. If one shows signs of fading, he has it removed from the shelves.
He can’t afford the slightest mistake: at nearly $17 a half-litre, O & Co’s most expensive oils cost as much as some fine Bordeaux wines.

has been a staple in the Mediterranean diet since ancient times, but the art of tasting it is new. Verdier, a slim, dapper and talkative 33-year-old, began his career as a wine taster. At 17 years old he was already the second sommelier at Marseille’s ‘Trois Forts’ restaurant; by 22 he began publishing his tasting notes on wine (which he still does today), establishing his reputation as one of the country’s best wine tasters.

For this native of the Marseille region, it was easy to become just as enthusiastic about olive oil. “I grew up with olive oil,” he says. “I’m happy to have come back to it now.” Because southern France produces much less oil than other traditional olive-producing countries such as Spain and Italy, O & Co. selects oils from all over the Mediterranean. But one of its missions is to revitalise French oil production, nearly wiped out after a devastating freeze in 1956.

to produce fruit worthy of good olive oil, and today some French olive oils made with the greatest care — by hand-selecting the olives and pressing them within hours in spotlessly clean conditions — are challenging the best of Tuscany and Sicily. Southern France offers an ideal setting for olive trees, which thrive in hot, dry weather at an altitude of around 300 metres.

The northern half of France used to look down on the southern diet of olive oil, garlic and gutsy vegetables such as eggplant and tomato, thinking butter and cream more refined. But that changed as one study after another, starting in the 1940s, showed olive oil’s health benefits: it aids digestion, thins the blood (which helps combat heart disease), and builds bone mass. People who adopted olive oil for these qualities grew attached to its flavour. Today, some of the top chefs in Paris — Alain Passard of L’Arpège, William LeDeuil of Les Bookinistes, and Guy Savoy among them — rely on olive oil for their inventive dishes. O & Co’s customers include Bretons and northerners, Verdier says, as well as many Americans who enjoy tasting oils.

, Verdier is quick to tell you. The first olive oil we try together is from Sicily. “This tastes of artichoke heart, of freshly cut grass,” he says. Next we taste a Croatian oil from Istria. “Do you recognise that flavour?” he asks. “In chocolate you have an undernote of cucumber. This oil tastes of bitter chocolate, and faintly of cucumber skin.” Then an oil from Mées in Provence. “It’s soft and grassy; it tastes of lemon balm.” Aix en Provence: “This has a strong hazelnut flavour, almost like grilled peanuts.” But he reserves his ultimate praise for an oil from the Massif de l’Estéret. “This has absolutely no bitterness, no acidity. It’s butter. This is one of my beautiful babies,” he sighs.

My visit to the rue de Buci shop is in late January, when the harvest is still taking place. In two months all these bottles will disappear, to be replaced by Verdier’s new batch of babies. He is already waxing eloquent about their freshness, their fruity, grassy, citrusy and herbal qualities. His advice on buying oil? “Extra-virgin only means that it has less than one percent acidity. Look for olive oils that are labelled with the region and the year. Otherwise you could be buying oil that’s two or three years old. The older oils get, the more they taste the same.”

Oliviers & Co
81, rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile,
75004 Paris (+33 (0)1 40 46 89 37)
28, rue de Buci,
75006 Paris (+33 (0)1 44 07 15 43)
11, rue Clemenceau,
83990 Saint-Tropez(+33 (0)4 94 97 34 69) Correspondence:
Oliviers & Co,
avenue de la Burlière,
04300 Mane (+33 (0)4 92 70 48 20).

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