The aim of this study is to develop an integrated set of analytical methods to characterize olive oil in terms of geographical origin, variety and extraction technology. Emphasis was also placed on the analysis of high quality extra virgin oils adulterated with lower quality sunflower oil. This research involved the study of novel methodologies for solving olive oil authentication issues as well as the replacement of traditional wet chemistry methods with faster and more efficient means of olive oil analysis. These techniques included gas chromatography, supercritical fluid chromatography, Raman spectroscopy, Infrared spectroscopy and carbon and proton NMR. Statistical analysis of the data obtained was used to identify the relationship between the measured parameters. The statistical analysis was carried out using both Win - Discrim and Unscrambler (Camo AS, 1996). These programs were designed to classify samples by hard modelling discriminant analysis and by soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA) respectively.