The 10 Best olive oils

Whether it's for drizzling over your pasta or knocking up a quick vinaigrette, we've got the oil for the job.

1. Nunez De Prado Extra Virgin Olive Oil

This award-winning Sicilian oil is made from three types of olives, cold-pressed almost straight after being picked, then left unfiltered to give an intense and fruity flavour. There's something satisfyingly rustic about the tin, too.

£10.99 for 1 litre, marksandspencer.com

2. The One Premium Extra Virgin Olive oil

This olive oil from Crete is pricy, but it's the champagne of olive oils and astonishingly good with fresh bread, or as a dressing for salad, or in cooking. It has been produced using traditional, cold-press techniques to create a perfectly balanced oil, high in Mediterranean flavour.

£39 for 500ml, ospreylondon.com

3. Hotel Chocolat Cocoa and Chilli Oil

A chocolatier isn't the obvious place to buy olive oil, but Hotel Chocolat knows a thing or two about the cocoa bean. Here, they've taken whole roasted cocoa beans and tangy chillies and soaked them in rich olive oil and the result is perfect as a dip for warm, crusty bread.

£12.50 for 250ml, hotelchocolat.co.uk

4. Marqués de Valdueza Extra Virgin Olive Oil

This clear, bright, green-gold extra virgin olive oil feels light, but has incredible flavours including mint, basil and tomato vine. The bitterness is balanced by the buttery taste and the aftertaste is long and persistent.

£14.99, waitrose.com

5. Taste the Difference Greek Kalamatan Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Boasting robust fruity flavours of apple, citrus and herbs, this rich oil comes from the Taygetos mountain in Greece's southern Peloponnese.

£5.50 for 500ml, sainsburys.co.uk

6. Carluccio's umbrian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Carluccio's, as you might expect, has an impressive range of olive oils. This one benefits from a complex combination of fruit and almonds and pepper and is produced from three different kinds of olives.

£11.25 for 500ml, carluccios.com

7. A L'Olivier Black Fruity Virgin Olive Oil

This provides you with an intensely nutty oil with a light toasty aroma and a touch of citrus fruits. Blended in A L'Olivier's atelier in Nice, France, it's unique and utterly fabulous.

£13.50 for 250ml, harrods.com

8. Tesco Finest Sicilian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

This award-winning oil comes from hand-picked olives from farms in the Iblei mountains of south-east Sicily. The flavour is intense and perfectly balanced.

£7 for 500ml, tesco.com

9. Castillo Early Royal 2012 Harvest Olive Oil

The Royal olive is an ancient native variety from Jaen, Andalucia, which is almost extinct. Damn shame as the flavour in this wonderful green oil is extraordinary, incorporating greengages, grass, green beans and pea shoots. Snap it up while you can.

£25 for 500ml, fortnumandmason.com

10. Nudo Stone Ground with Lemons

This husband-and-wife team produce lip-smackingly good olive oils from their groves in Le Marche, Italy. Their flavoured ones, particularly the lemon one, are particularly scrumptious, not least because they are made by crushing the fruit together with the olives at the time of harvest.

£6.99 for 250ml, nudo-italia.com