Olive Oil Lesson #8: DOP

If you’ve ever seen PDO, DOP, or DOC on a bottle of some European Food Product such as Wine, Cheese, Oil, etc. and you were confused on what those letters actually meant, this blog post is for you.

Even if you haven’t noticed those letters I bet they’ve been hidden on the labels right in front of your eyes.

DOP Definition

Note: I’m not actually a corn farmer. And the below is made up — there’s no such thing as DOP Nassau County Corn Oil. Corn Oil unfortunately isn't that simple (or healthy). It's typically a highly refined product that undergoes bleaching, degumming, etc like any other seed oil (think Canola Oil, Cottonseed Oil). Just follow along to understand DOP

DOP — I will use a local county as an analogy. I'm from Long Island in New York, and I am a corn farmer. Corn oil is a valuable commodity (Mazola actually is a big corn oil brand — wild they can claim it’s “heart healthy”)

DOP Nassau County means every element of the production of the corn oil happened in Nassau County.

• The Corn was grown in Nassau County

• The Oil was produced in Nassau County

• The Storage and Bottling of the Oil occurred in Nassau County

There are DOPs for Cheese, Wine (DOC) , Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, and more. The DOP is headed by a regulating body who enforces policies for the specific DOP.

More Examples

Assume corn from Kansas is cheaper than corn in Nassau County, and the quality of the two are identical.

Scenario 1: I import corn from Kansas and produce (mill) the corn oil on Long Island. Not DOP because the Corn doesn't come from Nassau County.

Scenario 2: I grow corn and mill corn oil on my farm in Nassau County, but send the oil to New Jersey for bottling and storage. Not DOP because bottling occurs outside of Nassau County.

To go a step further, regions often have an IGP (Protected Geographical Indication or PGI) as well. It's typically a looser definition that represents all aspects of production happening in a geographic region.

Let's pretend there is an IGP Long Island (contains Nassau and Suffolk Counties — which each have their own DOP).

Scenario 3: I grow corn and mill corn on my farm, but blend in some corn from the neighboring Suffolk county as I need more corn oil to satisfy consumer demand. If my oil meets Long Island quality standards, this could qualify for IGP Long Island. It would not quality for DOP Nassau County nor DOP Suffolk County.

DOP Balsamic Vinegar

Olive Oil generally follows the above structure, but Balsamic is a bit different. In fact Balsamic Vinegar Producers are not even allowed to bottle their own DOP balsamic! They literally have to transport their aged balsamic vinegar to the consortium (think town hall) to get bottled with oversight from regulators. Since DOP Balsamic Vinegar is so expensive, bottling at the Consortium guarantees a high quality product in that bottle.

There are two Official DOPs for Balsamic Vinegar (in terms of location): Modena and Reggio Emilia (they each have long official Italian names but I simplify it here). Both are neighboring cities in the Emilia-Romagnia Region of Italy (think Parmesan Cheese-ville).

• Modena Balsamic has 2x DOPs: 12 Year and 25 Year Balsamic

• Reggio Emilio has 3x DOPs: 12 Year, 18 Year, and 25 Year Balsamic

Please note not every 12 year or 25 year balsamic is a DOP. There’s a reason when a 25 Year Balsamic is $33 for a 500 ML bottle rather than $190 for a 100 ML bottle (29x More Expensive!!!)

You can read more about Balsamic here.

Learning Hack: One useful tool for rapidly learning food products is Wikipedia. Just search Balsamic Vinegar or any related product into Wikipedia to get enough of an understanding to make 10-20 informative TikToks on the product. And if you or anyone you know needs help growing a TikTok account, reply to this email directly!

As always please comment any questions about this article or about olive oil (& balsamic) in general.

If you think this article was useful for you, please share with a friend or on social media!

I’ll drop another lesson next week.

-Jack (@extravirginguy)