Monovarietal Magic or Menu McDonaldization
I was thinking about oil the other day. When I say oil, of course, I’m not thinking about Castrol EDGE C1; I mean olive oil. In Spain, you can buy other oils—sesame, corn, Castrol, and so on—but oil, for most purposes, really means olive oil. The oil came to mind because I was in our local winery this week. They have a small supermarket there which features a gourmet section devoted to high-price, high-quality local foodstuffs. One of the star products is olive oil. Good olive oil is made by cold-pressing olives to produce extra virgin olive oil. The best olive oils are monovarietal. The comparison with whisky is obvious. Blended whiskies can be very good, but the experienced tippler is likely to prefer a single malt. Equally, with olive oil, some of the blended, or coupage, oils are very tasty, but if you pay your money, you will end up with single oils made from, for instance, Arbequina, Picual, Hojiblanca, Manzanilla, Cornicabra, Empeltre, Verdial, Lechín, Riquela, or Blanqueta...