Artisan Olive Oil

Back in December 2012, I received a lovely hostess gift of a selection of herb infused olive oils from my friend, Sirat. Now that it’s May, I have gone through 3 out of the four and am on my last bottle. The oils were delicious so I decided to re-stock.  

Since the purveyor, Sapore is a short walk from my house, I walked over to check out the place. Located near Eastern Market on Pennsylvania Ave. SE, it’s chock full of artisan olive oils, vinegars and salts.  There’s a great selection of tapenades and other items that would be perfect for host/hostess gifts. I got a really tasty sundried tomato version that was delicious on the jalapeno cheddar bread I got from Whole Foods that day.

I was out of regular extra virgin olive oil so decided to pick that up for cooking. The olive oils are sourced from countries such as Spain and Greece. There are sections for the infused oils and then are the straight up regular versions, sorted by fruitiness.  They had a limited quantity of a unfiltered oil from Greece so I got a bottle. You can tap the canisters to have a test taste. They keep small cubes of bread throughout the store so that you can try out the oils.

The staff is very friendly and patient in helping you decide. If you want to be more informed before you go, check out this nifty article on Secrets to Buying Olive Oil.

If you can’t make it to the store, the Sapore website also allows you to get items shipped to you! There’s even a blog to get recipes so when you get home and realize you don’t really know what you want to do with the truffle oil (other than drink it straight from the bottle!), you can get some ideas.

I got an medium body Italian olive oil for cooking, the unfiltered Greek olive oil, a truffle oil and the sundried tomato tapenade. A little trip to the Mediterranean by way of SE DC 🙂

Much thanks to Sirat for the gift and for introducing me to such a wonderful store. If you’re in the DC area, support a local business and the artisans who supply the products! Bonus points in that they will give you a discount on your next purchase when you return the bottles after you’re done 🙂

Cheers!

MXM

660 Pennsylvania Ave. SE

Washington, DC