THE DIVERSITY OF ITALIAN MONOVARIETAL EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OILS: FROM TRAINED PANEL TO CONSUMER EXPERIENCE

Italian olive oil production is based on autochthonous cultivars that contribute to preserve, in large part, the extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) ancient genetic diversity. Since the chemical and sensory characters of EVOO are strongly affected by the genotype, the safeguard and the characterization of cultivars and clones play a key role to ensure the marketing of olive oils defined by high quality standards. In the last nine years (2006-2014) of the Italian National Review of Monovarietal Extra Virgin Olive Oils the sensory profiles of more than 2000 samples, originating from 154 varieties and 18 Italian regions, were characterized by the Agency for Agrofood Sector Services of Marche (ASSAM) trained panel. The data were analysed with techniques based on cluster analyses in order to identify similarity among the monovarietal oils and six EVOO typologies with different sensory properties. The method used to define the sensory properties of EVOOs involves evaluation of oils on their own without taking into account the actual conditions often experienced when consuming olive oil (i.e. mixed with food). In this study we investigated the impact of EVOO as condiment on the consumers liking of real food; we also investigated the ability of the consumer to discriminate between different EVOOs. Regular EVOO consumers gave hedonic ratings for two culinary preparations, each paired with two monovarietal EVOO samples, and assessed the presence of specific sensory properties of the EVOO by CATA. The consumers' responses showed that the use of different monovarietal EVOO typologies influenced the sensory properties of the different culinary preparations. In some pairing, consumers did not discriminate the two EVOOs in terms of acceptability, but the CATA technique did. The results indicate that regular consumers can discriminate between the six typologies of monovarietal olive oils established by a trained panel; this type of information may prove useful in orienting products, i.e. monovarietal olive oil, towards the consumers' real expectations and preferences.