We got 10 quarts of Farnese's olive oil crop from Fabio and Nicolletta. Crushed in November, shipped and arrived in Dec.. Currently being stored in wine cellar.

Realistically how long can I keep this and not expect it to start to turn. It was commercially bottled so I am not worried about mold or other things. Just taste.

Or should I start giving it as b-day presents?

You'll find some good information here I generally buy my oil in smaller qualtities then you mentioned and use it up within a month or two.

Regardless of when you purchase the oil, it's all pressed at the same time in late fall. it should not be kept for more than one year from the pressing date. To keep it in its best shape, store in a dar and cool but not cold place. If it's in bottles, cover each bottle with newspaper sheets and keep in the coolest part of the house (a cellar if you have one) making sure it never freezes and solidifies.

Alice, you are going to croak when you hear this one. There's a restaurant in London that has new oil frozen in Italy and flown to London so that they can advertise and serve olio novello all year round.

I am aware also some Italians freeze oil. The problem with freezing oil is that by freezing the fat and the watery parts containing a good deal of nutrients (especially the salts) separate and, if it's not used immediately, the thawed oil tends to go bad pretty fast and acquire an unpleasant taste.
having said this, it must be noticed that the fashion for new oil is a quite recent thing: until not so long ago throughout most of Italy the OLD¹ oil was considered beter because rounder in taste. I am still in the old oil area, especially being from up here in the north where we traditionally prefer butter.

¹ With "old" I mean not more than one year old!!!

In the worst of all possible scenarios, someone has some unfiltered olio nuovo that is going on 20 months old. It's been in a cool basement.

If this were to happen to someone, what condition would the oil be in? Would it be usable, in case the (hypothetical) person would give the oil away, or gone bad, in which case the (hypothetical) person would toss the oil (and NOT in a salad).

I have frozen olive oil and it has not separated, nor has it then gone rancid, and it has now been a few months in a cool cupboard. It still tastes quite fresh.

An internet search predominantly supports freezing as being a good method of preservation.

It seems likely to me that a combination of the oil hardening at about 10c and water being a small proportion of EVOO content is probably the reason that separation does not occur. This seems to be different from water based solutions where ice forms first and separates out.

I have to respectfully (but emphatically) disagree with Alice.
I'm on my third year of freezing my new oil the moment it is shipped to me from Umbria.
I don't get any separation in the containers.
I use 4 oz plastic containers with very tightly sealing lids.
I fill them as full as I can get them to minimize the air pocket at the top.
I then double seal the containers in ziplock bags and put them in my deep freeze.
I take one container out of the freezer and let it thaw in the butter compartment of my fridge. Then I use it like a soft spread margarine.
I take another container out and let it thaw on the counter (takes only a few minutes) to use to make salad dressings and for other uses when I know I'm going to use the entire amount.
I never put a thawed container back in the fridge, however.

The oil retains it grassy/peppery flavor for an entire year.

Here is a photo of three containers of unfiltered oil: frozen, soft in fridge, and liquid. You can clearly see that there is no separation.

quote:

Originally posted by Marian:
In the worst of all possible scenarios, someone has some unfiltered olio nuovo that is going on 20 months old. It's been in a cool basement.

Taste it. In the worst case it has become rancit (pretty likely for unfiltered oil) and it has to be thrown away. What happens to old oil is just it: from the nutritional point of view it loses its properties due to oxidation, but it's still a decent fat unless it has gone rancid, which is likely to happen for unfiltered oil of oil that has been frozen.
By the way, the water content in oil are not enough as to make the separation visible. But it still occurs: have yo ever tried frying with thawed oil? it sputters! Any oil (not just olive) that has been frozen and defrozen must be used within a week, or better useed while still forzen. Yet the point is "why freezing if the oil really tastes better once it has lost its "new" tangyness? The peppery taste is not a property, it's a flaw!

quote:

Originally posted by Alice Twain:
Yet the point is "why freezing if the oil really tastes better once it has lost its "new" tangyness? The peppery taste is not a property, it's a flaw!

I would suggest that this is a matter of taste and preference.
Peppery oil is not flawed to my taste because I happen to enjoy it for certain uses.
Just as I enjoy a rich buttery oil with strong hint of avocado for other uses.
Suggesting that there is only one 'correct' flavor for olive oil is like saying all wine should taste the same.

Sure. Yet, for no wine a "cork" taste is considered a desirable trait.

You win, Alice.
I'll keep freezing the peppery Umbrian oil I love so much, and you can keep tut-tutting my uneducated American palate. How's that for a compromise?

quote:

Originally posted by Alice Twain:

By the way, the water content in oil are not enough as to make the separation visible. But it still occurs: have yo ever tried frying with thawed oil? it sputters! Any oil (not just olive) that has been frozen and defrozen must be used within a week, or better useed while still forzen. Yet the point is "why freezing if the oil really tastes better once it has lost its "new" tangyness? The peppery taste is not a property, it's a flaw!

I sacrificed a little of my thawed oil to experiment. It did not sputter once when raised to a smoking temperature.
It is not rancid.
You don't like the peppery taste, but for a lot of people it really tastes better.
A lot of people don't like sparkling wine. They would do better to choose a still wine than to tell people to wait for the wine to go flat before drinking it. For some people retsina is a flawed wine, while for others it is a desirable property.

Let me put it differently: some people prefer sparkling wine, some prefer dry wine. Nobody prefers too young or too old wine: a novello has to be drunk withing a few months, while a Barolo must not be served before 3 years. Oil should sit for about a month before being used.

Must be the Milanese take. People around here crowd into "open day" at the frantoio and eagerly hold out their bread for the stuff just out of the presses. Me too. Or even a finger.

It's the opposite: new oil is a Tuscan/Umbrian thing. Like too tannic wines.

Alice,

It is personal preferences. Not right and wrong.
Analogies don't prove anything either way; though they may illustrate different perspectives.

For the Chinese, risotto is how you ruin rice if you don't know how to cook it properly.

The "too tannic wines" comment sounds snobbish.

Ok, so let me get this straight...
The tradition of enjoying New Oil (which is prized in Umbria, Tuscany, Puglia, Portugal, Spain, & Greece) is to be dismissed and ridiculed because it ISN'T prized in Milan.
Do I have that right?

quote:

Originally posted by Alice Twain:
Yet the point is "why freezing if the oil really tastes better once it has lost its "new" tangyness? The peppery taste is not a property, it's a flaw!

Alice,
you know that I respect your acknowledge on many things, we usually agree onthings and sometimes don't.

This time I don't. Even if I do not usually freeze oil -10 quarters would last to me about 2 weeks- oil freezes, and actually it freeze well.

I know Deb thing with freezing, and I also know that it works well.

It occurres to me that you come from North, where the usage of Olive Oil is not traditional, but a fairly newer thing, so you might not be aware that more often than not oil freezes in its container when stored in cantinas during long cold winters.
Mne does, every time, and I agree with Deborah, it doesn't separate, and taste the same.

I do not freeze intentionally Oil because I don't need to, I live close to one of the mills, and we buy when the freshly milled oil is in "season" 50, 70 liters at the time. And when it is finished -because it does before october-I just go to the mill and buy what's left.

The "expiring date" is put in by law. By law all should have an expiring date, expecially unprocessed foods or produces of farmers. Regardless how long it can really last, just a bureocratic precaution. The best judge is your nose. And your taste.

If it is not rancid, use it.

One time we bought 80 liters and got -in gifts, is pretty usual- over 30 liters from friends, family etc.
It was more than we possibly could use, and we used what was left next year just the same. Actually we used first the new oil, "the flawed one"-we'll be there in a moment- and then what was left of the year before.

Some producers mix old and new.

The following words are written with the greatest respect but with the greatest passion for a tradition that here is soo strong, OLIVE OIL.

Alice, about the peppery taste.
If we were talking about butter or lard I would have just kept shut, but OIL, please!

It is obvious that you do not come from a region which tradition are based on OLIVE OIL:

SIT FOR 6 MONTHS BEFORE USE??

This is new. AND ABSURD!

One of the most fantastic traditions here, during the olive milling is bruschetta e vin novo.

The evening the farmer comes back from the mill with the new oil, he ivites his neighbours to have bruschetta -toasted bread on coals, rubbed with garlic, generously sprinkled with oil and salted, and vin novo -novello.

It is true untill some years ago, that the olio nuovo in southern Italy wasn't valued and had to sit for a while, that was because the olives were not even picked from the tree, but pick from the ground when they were already fallen, too ripe, so the oil was too strong and acid, therefore of a second -if not third quality. So maybe you have somehow confused the informations.

Now the makers of olive oil in the south have turned to a more tuscan/umbrian way of growing and picking olives. And their oil is not considered a third choice anymore, maybe a close second.

But, for God sake, if Umbria and Toscana are considered the world's MECCA for EVOO there must be a reason.

Alice, I have to agree with John, and this is said tongue in cheek from an Italian that knows the meaning of the words sarcasm and snobbery.

You sometimes sound like a snobbish sarcastic teacher.
Your way is the only way, God forbids if people do it differently than you.

There are thousandth -you read it well, thousandth- sagras of olio novello, bruschetta and so forth all in the 3 month after the milling, you think that they all got wrong? all corky winers?

I would suggest that you keep using oil after 6 months as usual, and that we just keep enjoy the peppery taste of the freshly milled olive oil- that you jusy happen to have missed.

I value Milan for so many things, but not for it's famous olive oil.

quote:

Originally posted by Alessandra Federici:
SIT FOR 6 MONTHS BEFORE USE??

Who ever said this? Not me, I talked about some 3-4 weeks to allow the oil to sdeposit.
And maybe your oil stands freezing, certainly not anyone else's, unless used immediately.
And the fashion for tuscany.style oils leaves me cold: sorry, but Tuscany is not exactly the region of Italy where one can eat the best.

quote:

Originally posted by Alice Twain:
And maybe your oil stands freezing, certainly not anyone else's, unless used immediately.

Do an internet search. You are wrong about "not anybody else's".
You are also a minority viewpoint there.

Here are some examples found through a search on "olive oil freezing"

quote:

Freezing Olive Oil
If you need to store your oil for a long period of time, stick it in the freezer. Believe it or not, olive oil freezes well, retaining its health properties and flavor. However, its complex mixture of oils and waxes prevent it from freezing at exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Folk wisdom says you can tell the quality of an olive oil from the temperature at which it freezes, but this is not true.

quote:

Freezing Point: Olive oil will harden at refrigerator temperatures - around 10 degrees F. Water is a pure substance so it freezes at an exact temperature. Olive oil is a complex mixture of oils and waxes. The heavier oils and waxes will form needle-like crystals as the temperature is lowered, then the other oils will start to settle out. Winterization is the commercial process whereby these waxes are removed to keep the oil clearer when stored on a cold shelf. It is used mostly for aesthetics and to improve mixing when combined into mayonnaise, sauces, and dressings.. Because olive oil is a natural product and different from year to year even from the same bottler, each batch of oil will "freeze" at a different temperature. There is no exact freezing temperature. Freezing olive oil will not harm it; it will actually prolong it's nutritional benefits and its flavor. It is a myth that the freezing point of olive oil can be used to predict whether it is pure, virgin or extra virgin.

quote:

HEAT. Optimum storage temperature is +18 °C to +20 °C (+64 °F to +68 °F). Refrigerating or freezing does not harm any type of olive oil. But olive oil expands about 2-4 % by refrigeration or freezing and may shatter the glass bottle if bottle head space is not sufficient to compensate the expansion.
Refrigeration or ambient temperatures less than +15 °C (+59 °F) may causes partial crystallization at extra virgin type olive oils. Crystallization effect is less in blends of refined olive oils.
This effect is harmless and when olive oil container stored at room temperature of maximum +25 °C (+77 ° F), when olive oil temperature exceeds +16 °C (+60 °F), olive oil crystallization disappears and returns to golden clear color without any quality loss.
Virgin and Extra Virgin Oils must never exceed +25 °C (+77 °F). Otherwise nutritionally valuable vitamin E is degraded.

This is interesting in that the comments on its expansion when freezing differs from my experiments. An illustration of not accepting something just because it is on the internet.

Our summers are mostly over 25°C so the fridge or freezer are one of the few cool enough places. Maybe our lower storey extension will stay cooler.

Note that, as far as olive oil is concerned, the ordinary refrigerator section is a freezer.