Extra-Virgin Olive Oils from Nine Italian Regions: An H-1 NMR-Chemometric Characterization

Extra-virgin olive oil (383 samples; EVOOs) of three consecutive harvesting years from nine Italian regions were collected and submitted to an H-1 NMR-chemometric protocol to characterize the samples according to their origin (geographical area and variety). A more complete assignment of the olive oil H-1 spectrum in CDCl3 and DMSOd(6) was reported identifying 24-methylencycolartanol. A single classification model provided the discrimination of EVOOs among the three geographical macro-areas (North, Islands, Center-South), whereas a hierarchical approach based on breaking the overall classification problem into a series of smaller linear discriminant analysis (LDA) sub-models was tested to differentiate olive oils according to their geographical regions. Specific compounds responsible for olive oil characterization were identified.