Variety differentiation of virgin olive oil based on n-alkane profile

An on-line LC–GC method was used to assess the n-alkane composition of 40 olive oil samples obtained from three different cultivars from a restricted grove zone in Croatia. Olive samples were handpicked at three different ripening stages during four consecutive years. No significant differences were found in relation to the variable “period of harvesting”, while the effects “variety” and “year” as well as their interaction caused significant differences for most of the n-alkane components (p⩽0.05). Despite the influence of the production year, linear discriminant analysis based on the n-alkane components was able to correctly identify the variety of 97.5% of the samples.