Selection of extra virgin olive oils for an international award: sensory analysis and spectroscopic control

The Panel of the Department of Food Science (University of Bologna), recognized by the Italian Ministry in 2006, was involved in the sensory analysis of 112 extra virgin olive oils (coming both from Italy and from others countries) with the aim, in the contest of an international award, to select the better samples and to reject those characterized by a low organoleptic quality. Moreover, after this first selection step, the Panel divided the 50 better extra virgin olive oils in three different categories on the basis of the intensity of fruity attribute: 18 oils were defined as “low fruity”, 18 as “medium fruity” and 14 were characterized by “high fruity”. All samples were also analysed by spectroscopic techniques (FT-IR and FT-NIR) and a two-dimensional statistical linear discriminant analysis (2D-LDA) was applied to these data. Statistical results evidenced a good differentiation of the 112 extra virgin olive oils according to the sensory judgment of Panel. This outcome gives evidence of the potential of the spectroscopic techniques in the evaluation of extra virgin oil sensorial quality.