The virgin oil is the oily juice of a fruit, the olive. It is obtained through mechanical processes or other physical means in particular thermal conditions which do not cause alterations of the oil. The only treatment it must be subject to is the washing of the fruit, the milling, the prepartion of the paste, the separation of solids and liquids, the decanting and/or centrifuging and the filtering.

According to their quality, virgin olive oils can be EXTRA VIRGIN, VIRGIN or ordinary.

If it is refined, thereby altering its natural state, it is no longer called VIRGIN, but simply olive oil.

Virgin olive oil is the first of European community products which must be tasted to evaluate its organoleptic characteristics. At the beginning of the 1980s at the heart of the International Oleic Council, a sensory anlalysis group was set up to study and develop a method for the tasting of the virgin olive oil. In the mid-1980s the work was completed and the method was adopted by the International Oleic Council. The European Union formally adopted it in 1991 in itsEU Regulation 2586/91.