Lorenzo olive oil 1 3 5 difference

Valli Trapanesi "Lorenzo N° 1" extra virgin olive oil is a monovarietal extra virgin olive oil made with Cerasuola olives, cultivated in Western Sicily, in the Valli Trapanesi PDO area. Olives are cultivated with organic farming. Dedicated to three generations of the Barbera family, N°1 provides an intense-fruity extra virgin olive oil, with the typical fragrance reminding us of the fresh fruit, and a pleasant almond aftertaste.

Tasting Notes

Valli Trapanesi "Lorenzo N° 1" extra virgin olive oil is a dense, warm green oil with yellow-gold nuances. Its scent is spicy, herbal, net and persistent. Highly intense fruity taste, with a good balance, and notes of green tomato and a bitter almond aftertaste.

Last autumn I got an email from a friend, an American food writer living in Rome. It said I'd be receiving a parcel from a film director, Armando Manni. My friend apologised for giving my address to a stranger, but said she knew I'd be interested in the contents of the package - nothing less than the world's most expensive olive oil costing a whopping 250 euros, about £175, per litre. The oil arrived by FedEx, two dinky 100 ml black bottles. One was labelled 'Per me', and contained a robust, almost aggressively fragrant oil, tasting like the Platonic ideal of fat green olives. The other, 'Per mio figlio' ('for my child'), was delicate, smooth, aromatic like ripe black olives.

Tasting them was mind-blowing. They were both so chaste and fresh, like fruit juice made from olives. When swallowed they didn't coat your tongue, but slipped down, leaving your mouth feeling clean - though the taste lingered on for a very long time. I had no difficulty agreeing with the large claim that these were the world's best olive oils. The story in the accompanying leaflet was wonderfully romantic. (And told in English - which is where my friend came in: she had done the translation.) Of course the oil is Tuscan, and who could fail to be hooked by the enclosed photograph of a sloping olive grove, with two gnarled old trees standing on a ridge above the silver-green canopy of the other trees, almost silhouetted against a field of yellow corn? The landscape alone would justify the million euros I later learnt it had cost Signor Manni to buy the olive groves and the equipment to make the oil.

But where did I come in? In a phone call, Manni explained this to me himself. The oil is available only by mail order from his website (www.manni.biz). There is not a great deal of it, and his marketing strategy is to convince a few top international chefs of its merit, and hope they will let their best customers taste it, and, hopefully, order it. My friend had told Manni that I was the person to advise him about chefs in London.

That's why last November I went with him to Locanda Locatelli in London, where I tasted the oils again along with Giorgio Locatelli. On slurping the oil from a tiny spoon, Giorgio's bedroom eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. He placed a very large order. 'Even so,' he told me later, 'it is too expensive to put on every table.' He said the oil is reserved for special customers, though the head waiter will offer it 'if he thinks a table can appreciate it'.

Manni thinks big. When his son Lorenzo was born five years ago, the Italian film-maker was shocked to learn that, though he could buy organic food for his child, he couldn't be sure about the exact details of olive oil. So Manni, director of the cult film Elvjs & Merilijn - about two Romanians who win an Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe lookalike contest - took matters into his own hands and decided to do it himself.

To go from being a screenwriter/director to becoming an oil producer was not the extreme measure it might have been for someone else. Manni, who is 47 and lives in Rome, is used to changing careers. At university he read philosophy and economics, which I suppose is some sort of preparation for his first job in international finance. But not for his next move - into photography. He was so good at this that he soon found himself shaping the publicity images for groups ranging from the Clash to the Police. Television called next. As a TV director he won prizes for pioneering the use of the small Hi8 camera. Then he directed and wrote Elvjs & Merilijn in 1998 . He's put movie-making on hold to produce the olive oil, but by the end of this year he'll begin filming The Land's End Restaurant . 'It's based in London,' he told me, 'and is about food and love.' Star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who gives Manni's oil to his toddler, will be a consultant on the movie.

Most olive oil lovers are aware of the problems that induced Manni to create his own oil. We've all tasted oil that is no longer at its best. Indeed, most oil for export is shipped under refrigeration, which can itself alter the chemistry. As Italian law requires that olive oil undergo chemical analysis only once, at the time of bottling, unless you've got a very recently bottled oil, the initial analysis is unlikely to be valid by the time you've bought it.

It was a surprising discovery for Manni: since the health benefits of using monounsaturated olive oil in place of saturated fats such as butter are well documented, you'd have imagined that producers would have given some thought to keeping its healthy properties when it reaches the consumer.

Manni set about creating a new oil as though he were trying to make a great wine. Because he remained well-con nected in the academic world, he established a collaboration with the Department of Pharmaceutical Science at the University of Florence. With the proceeds of Elvjs & Marilijn he bought seven olive plantations, which his academic advisors had identified as ideal, on the isolated slopes of Monte Amiata, in Southern Tuscany near Montalcino. The trees are mature - some are 500 years old, and most are of the rare Olivastra Seggianese variety. Each olive grove is at a different altitude, has different soil and a different microclimate, and each yields a different 'cru', with different tastes.

The olives mature at different times, which allows his crew of 33 pickers to harvest the entire crop in a maximum of three weeks - as opposed to the usual two months. In December, after a 'soft filtration', they blend the seven crus into the two oils, which he markets as the delicate 'Per mio figlio' and the robust 'Per me'.

The specifications for all Tuscan extra-virgin olive oil require an oleic acid content of one per cent or lower ('virgin' simply means the oil is cold-pressed, produced by physical means only, using no heat).

Scientists now agree, though, that acid content is not the whole story. Not only are compounds called phenols responsible for the bouquet and flavour, but also for many of the healthy properties of olive oil. A good Tuscan oil will contain from 100 to 250 mg of polyphenols per litre.

Manni claims that 'the oil from many of our mountain crus can exceed 450 mg'. Polyphenols are important antioxidants, controlling the overproduction of free radicals, and reducing the concentrations of LDL ('bad' cholesterol) without reducing levels of HDL ('good' cholesterol). Extra virgin olive oil rich in polyphenols (and usually at least 75 per cent monounsaturated fatty acids) is at the very least good for you, and may even confer some protection against a wide variety of ailments.

But these properties can easily be lost in the chain from harvesting the olives to putting the oil on your table. Manni's challenge was to get the oil to the consumer in the same chemical state it left the press, protected from the effects of (ultraviolet) light and oxygen. First, he uses dark anti-ultraviolet glass for the bottles that eliminates virtually all of the UV rays. (Besides the expense - about 60p for the bottle alone - other olive oil producers eschew this glass because it prevents the customer from seeing the colour of the oil.)

To prevent oxidation after bottling and before corking, he uses a blanket of inert gas, as do some winemakers and, like many winemakers, synthetic stoppers. The most radical measure, though, is that he uses tiny bottles - 100 ml (3.4 fl oz). Oil begins to deteriorate when the bottle is opened, so the smaller the quantity exposed, the longer the oil retains its properties. The chemical analysis is done not once, but four times a year.

So it's no surprise that Manni's is the most expensive olive oil on earth, or that it is delivered to you by courier, under pressure- and temperature-controlled conditions and sold only via the website. The minimum order is one litre (10 teeny bottles) and costs just over £175.

Is it worth it? Some of the world's top chefs think so. In Rome the chosen eateries are La Pergola, Il Convivio and Ristorante Agata e Romeo; in New York, Jean-Georges and the Four Seasons have the oils, as does the French Laundry in Napa. Heston Blumenthal is experimenting with them at the Fat Duck in Bray.

So what does it taste like? Italy's Gambero Rosso magazine found 'intense notes of bitter chocolate' in Per me, and 'something of a great wine in its impact'; and for Per mio figlio 'sweetness_ with a note of sugar-covered almonds'. The flavour of both is so intense that you only need a teaspoonful where you'd normally use a tablespoon. Following Manni's advice, we now drizzle a few drops of Per mio figlio over tomato salad and soups. Both are sheer magic.

Even if we were to ignore the fact that olive oil's flash point (about 260 F, 140 C) is too low for cooking, these oils are, of course, far too expensive to cook with. But the more delicate one is fabulous as a condiment with white fish; while oily fish such as salmon is better with the robust oil, as is grilled chicken and, with the addition of a squeeze of lemon, lamb chops. I blush to reveal how quickly my household gets through a 100ml bottle. My kids drizzle them on everything but their cornflakes. We are going to have to store the remaining bottles in a padlocked container.

·Manni's oil is available at www.manni.biz

We have five sets of Manni's oil to give away - each contain two 100ml bottles.

Enter online at www.observerfoodmonthly.co.uk or send us a postcard with your name, address and daytime number by May 26 to OFM Marketing / Manni's Oil, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. Winners will be drawn at random.

Terms and conditions: 1. Full terms and conditions available at www.observerfoodmonthly.co.uk.

2. The independently supervised draw will close at midnight on 26/5/03.

3. Guardian Newspapers Ltd. is not responsible for delayed or lost entries or for problems with entries caused by any factors outside our control.

4. Promoter: The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER

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