Preliminary characterisation of monovarietal extra-virgin olive oils obtained from different cultivars in Croatia

Chemical characterisation was carried out on 22 virgin olive oil samples obtained from 5 olive cultivars (Oblica, Lastovka, Levantinka, Drobnica, Mastrinka cvs.). The olives, that came from different groves in Croatia, were processed by centrifugation system in two phases. Several qualitative parameters were evaluated (free acidity, peroxide value and UV spectrophotometric indices) and analyses of major (fatty acids) and minor components (phenolic fraction and their antioxidant power evaluated by ABTS·+ and electrochemical test) was also carried out. The results for all samples have shown belonging to category of extra virgin olive oil, depending on analysed analytical parameters. Moreover, the oils had very good storage capacity, depending on fatty acid composition, and also very good phenols content. Particularly, among the most representative varieties, the tendency to higher antioxidant activity had oils produced from Lastovka variety, followed by oils from Oblica and Levantinka.