Chef's Pick Organic Olive Oil - Katz
500 mL Suisun Valley, California (2022 Harvest)
2019 California Organic Olive Oil
Mix a few olives and get Chef's Pick
A multiple Gold Medal winner in a world's olive oil competition with 18 countries and 500 entries, this is one happening oil!
This oil is one of our all-time-always-our-favorite artisan olive oils, every single year since the beginning of time. From the first year to this one, the oil has matured and we and our palate has matured along with it. This year may be the most "complete" oil ever.
2015 tasting notes
To the eye: A mixture of darkness of green and a lightness of yellow.
To the nose: It makes the nose pucker with some wonderful green and fruity notes.
To the mouth:There's a warm-up butteriness on the first swig, along with it a cloud of vapor that is very expressive. The finish has a bit of bitterness on the edge but not overpowering. The second swig you realize the tip of the tongue gets an abundance of gentle olive flavor with a bit of a tingle. The tongue and the mouth is enveloped in this wonderful cloud of all over flavor that settles down to give you more notes of green artichoke and asparagus and flowery butter.
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A bright and shining star in the world of artisan olive oil, close to home, and it is used in large quantities by Chefs in some of the finest restaurants. (We are not allowed to say whom) It is a great oil that is so versatile it is one of the few oils that spans all palates and is on the list if you could only have one oil on your dessert island.
With a peroxide value of 4.4 and a very low (0.14) acidity reading, this a true indication of the quality of this California organic olive oil.
At first nose you can smell the "grass" and there is a wonderful "tingle" too. Full of artichoke and bit of fennel. The color is much lighter than you would expect for an oil so "nose full"! The first mouthful coats the lips and remains. The oil dissipates in the mouth, vaporizing with the artichoke and less grass. Only on the third mouthful did I notice the grassiness on the flat of my tongue.
It took three "tastes" to prove to me that this oil just gently ghosts away, the only reminder that you just had the oil is by the tickle in the back of the throat that makes you cough. And, as I have come to like, just the ever so a slight bitterness on the edges of the tongue that is just right.
"Just right" is my feeling about this oil this year. A full nose, a gentle oil with a ton of flavor that can be just itself on plain pasta or in a salad. And, it can empower protein in a one pot dish or at the campfire drizzled over a freshly caught frog. This is one good oil! It just might be the best this year!
2011/2012 Tasting notes
This year's oil has a very low .13 free acidity reading, an international indicator of the oil's very high quality.
Now a four-time gold medal winner at the Los Angeles County Olive Oils of the World Competition. From over 500 entries from 18 countries, Chef's Pick was one of only 20 domestic gold medal winners! Congratulations, Albert and Kim Katz!
"Chef's Pick" extra-virgin organic olive oil (CCOF Certified) is a star of the Katz label and a four-time gold medal winner at the prestigious L.A. County Fair Olive Oils of the World Competition, currently the most prestigious of its kind in the United States. It proudly bears the California Olive Oil Council's "certified extra-virgin seal," your assurance of authenticity and high-quality.
Designed for great-value everyday use, Chef's Pick is a carefully crafted extra-virgin olive oil blend made from olives harvested each year on Katz's organic and sustainably farmed groves in the Suisun Valley (on the eastern border of Napa).
About Chef's Pick
the goal of the Katz prouducts remains simple: to produce authentic and artisan-made products of both great quality and great value for daily use.
This oil has a very low free acid level, well below the international accepted threshold. Made from handpicked olives, the unfiltered oil achieves a rustic charm with grassy, floral overtones, pleasant fruitiness, a lush mouth feel, and a nice pungency in the finish. It will enhance a wide array of foods and is the perfect condiment quality oil for the professional and home cook.
The Olives
This historic and agriculturally rich valley in California, with loamy and sandy soils, is an ideal growing region for the Italian varietals of olives Katz has planted. Chef's Pick extra-virgin olive oil contains several olive varieties. Frantoio, Leccino and Maurino make up 50% of the blend. These classic Tuscan cultivars produce the rustic flavors of grassiness and fruitiness in the nose, coupled with the requisite pungency in the finish. Taggiasca and Casaliva comprise 40% of the blend, and these varieties are native to the Liguria and Lombardy regions of Italy, respectively; they're noted for their soft and persistent fruitiness with sweet overtones, producing a lush mouth feel, and are grown on Katz's Rock Hill Ranch in the Suisun Valley. Allegra, Bosana and Coratina make up the remaining 10%; these are cultivars from Umbria, Sardinia and Puglia, respectively, and all add varying nuances of flavor to the finished oil.
For more information about olive oil and how to make sure you are buying a good one, ready our article, "The Inconvenient Truth About Extra Virgin Olive Oil" here.
Note about harvest dates: In the nothern hemisphere, olives are harvest and pressed between October and December. Which means the current harvest is actually last year. So, for example, if we are in 2017, the current harvest year is 2016.