International Congress BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS - Gruppo di ...

24
CHARACTERIZATION OF ORGANIC VIRGIN OLIVE OILS FROM OGLIAROLA SALENTINA
CULTIVAR
E. Perri, N. Lombardo, I. Muzzalupo, B.
Rizzuti, M. Pellegrino
Istituto Sperimentale per l’Olivicoltura
C.da Li Rocchi, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy
eperri@libero.it
G. Sindona, C. Benincasa
Dipartimento di Chimica
Università della Calabria
I-87030 Arcavacata di Rende (CS),
Italy
121
C. Cavallo
Regione Puglia
I.P.A., Brindisi, Italy
Introduction
The organic extra-virgin olive oil would be able to have high nutritional and sensory quality as necessary
requirement to become part of those Italian products that are able to survive in the national and international
market. However, there are very few reports on the qualitative, nutritional and organoleptic characteristics of
these products (Gutierrez et al., 1999; Perri et al., 1999a; Perri et al., 2001; Perri et al., 2002). Recently, a
research project dealing with the “Characterisation of olive oils from the South of Italy obtained by organic
farming systems” has been co-funded by the EU and the Italian Ministry of Agriculture (B07 Project,
Multiregional Operational Programme, 2 Measure). The principal aim of this research project was to classify and
characterise the nutritional and organoleptic quality of organic olive oils and to compare the quality of organic
olive oil of important Italian cultivars from selected producing areas to conventional and/or integrated olive oils
from the same cultivars and areas. This paper presents some results of the second year of activity in Apulia of the
above research project.
Materials and methods
Plant material. In 2000/2001 harvest, triplicate samples of organically and conventional cultivated olive drupes
of Ogliarola salentina cv. from two adjacent farms at Villa castelli (Brindisi, Italy) were collected 10 days before
the traditional start of harvest, in the middle of the harvest period and 10 days after the end of harvest time. To
compare organically produced olive oils versus conventional olive oils the olives were handpicked from the
same cultivars under comparable pedo-climatic, harvesting and productive conditions and the analytical and
sensory data compared on the basis of the same stage of olive maturity monitored by Jaen index (Gutierrez et al.,
1999).
Work-up of plant material. Olive drupes (10 Kg) were crushed with a hammer mill and the oil was extracted by
centrifugation after 20 minutes of malaxation at RT.
Analytical procedures. The measurements of free acidity, fatty acid methyl esters, peroxide index, specific
extinction coefficients K232 and K270, ∆k, and panel test have been determined according to the European Official
Methods of Analysis (EC Regulation N. 2568/91 July, 1991). Total phenols were determined by colorimetry
using the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent using caffeic acid as external standard. Oleuropein (olp) was determined in
virgin olive oil extracts by tandem mass spectrometry with Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization (APCI-
MS/MS) under Selected Reaction Monitoring (SRM) condition (Perri et al., 1999b).
Results and discussion
According with the results of the first year of observation (Perri et al., 2002), from the data of quality parameters
of table 1, it turns out that the olive oil from Ogliarola salentina cv. was characterised by medium to low level of
total phenols and low percentages of oleic acid. Moreover, only the olive oils produced in the first period of
harvest were ascribable without any tolerance to the extra virgin olive oil grade on the basis of organoleptic
score (panel test). This is probably due to an increase of the percentages of Bactrocera oleae infestations
observed in the second harvest period. As shown by the variance analysis (table 1), analytical and sensory data
relating to organic and conventional olive oils are very similar probably because of similar percentages of olive
fly infestation due to ineffective pesticide treatments. Finally, an increase of olp content in olive oil versus Jaen
index was also observed.
Acknowledgements
The Italian Ministry of Agriculture and European Union (Multiregional Operational Programme, Measure 2, B07
Project) supported this research work. We thank Mr. Lorenzo Elia and Amalio Cassese for olive sampling, data
collection on farming systems and olive grove management. We thank also Prof. Angelo Putignano and Prof.
Francesco Prudentino (I.T.A.S. of Ostuni-BR) for olive oil extraction.
PDF creato con FinePrint pdfFactory versione dimostrativa http://www.secom.re.it/fineprint