It is Saturday morning, and L'Abricoc (c. de l'1 d'Octubre, 6, Fonteta) has organized a tasting of Empordà olive oils with cheeses, liver pâté, and sweet sausage. The village is pleasant to look at: stone houses, the Romanesque church of Santa Maria, two restaurants that everyone in the village recommends (El Magatzem and El Saó), and a cheesemaker that I will also visit (and about whom I will write) with a reputation throughout the country. L'Abricoc's display window, made of wood and glass, shows a summary of what is inside: chocolates, oils, wines, Pallarès knives, uniquely designed linen bags. Even the constant cyclists who pass by look at it. If you walk by, calmly, you enter without thinking about it after observing the good taste with which the products are displayed.

The labeling on olive oil bottles doesn't indicate the name of the town, the area, or the exact region where the olive extract we use to cook and season our food is produced. On the other hand, it does specify whether the product is made in Spain, the European Union, or elsewhere. What, then, does the address we read on the labels—often there's one on the back label—next to the brand name mean? Well, it corresponds to the name of the company that markets it, which may have packaged oil purchased outside of Catalonia there. This fact is what can lead consumers to think that if the address on a bottle is Catalan, it necessarily means that what they are buying is oil made in our country, when It may have been made at the other end of the State, for example in Jaén, which is the world's leading producer of olive oil.This approach, which could be interpreted as cheating, is entirely legal and permitted by industry regulations.