Olive oil bottles make great gifts. We recently tasted two interesting, delicious, affordable olive oils. The first is Gallo Azeite Novo. It is made from olives that are still green, giving the oil a spicy, fresh taste. The second is Gallo’s Moonlight Harvest. It is made from olives harvested at night and pressed while they are still cold. It has a smooth, fruity taste.
The quality of olive oil can vary greatly from crop to crop, depending on rainfall and temperature throughout the year. That is why, to ensure consistency of quality and taste, Gallo blends olive oil from different regions.
Each year, Portuguese farmers wait nervously to taste the new olive oil in a ritual called “tiborna.” They dip warm country bread into the oil and, to bring out the flavors, season it with a pinch of salt or a pinch of sugar and cinnamon.
You can invite some friends and enact the same ritual at home. Which olive oil do they prefer? The freshness of young oil or the smoothness of midnight oil? You can peer into their souls by observing their choices.
It is generally a good idea to buy the olive oil at the airport’s free shop and take the bottles inside the airplane as a carry on.
Salt of Portugal 
I think Portuguese olive oil is much underrated in other countries. What time of the year do the farmers do the testing or is it different in different parts of Portugal? I would love to read more about it in your blog.
Hi Carole we could not agree more! we have two posts about olive oil, one is about a niche producer in the Algarve: http://buff.ly/1Bw6TJK . The other is about Gallo, a major brand http://buff.ly/19owSuG The olive oil we blogged about just one the first prize in the Mario Solinas competition.