**7. Perspectives**

Absorption spectroscopy, carried out in the UV-VIS-NIR and combined with chemometrics, can be used for authentication, fraud detection, as well as for quantifying quality indicators. Optical fibers can be used for localized or online analyses.

Absorption spectroscopy for assessing the extra virgin olive oil can be performed also in other spectroscopic bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, especially in the mid-infrared (MIR) and far-infrared (FIR). Recently, NIR and MIR bands were successfully combined and showed effectiveness not only for classifying Italian and French olive oils (Sinelli et al., 2008; Galtier et al., 2011), but also for a classification on the basis of the fruity sensory attribute (Sinelli et al., 2010). The instrumentation for MIR absorption spectroscopy makes use of other types of sources/detectors/optics and measuring schemes. Usually, the attenuated total reflection modality is used, which allows absorption measurements even in high absorption liquids, like olive oil is in the MIR.

Other optical spectroscopic techniques are emerging for the quality assessment of extra virgin olive oils, especially the fluorescence and the Raman spectroscopies. The interested readers can have a look at the most recent bibliography (Ross Kunz et al., 2011; El-Abassy et al., 2010; Paiva-Martins et al., 2010; El-Abassy et al., 2009; Tena et al., 2009; Zou et al., 2009; Sikorska et al., 2008; Poulli et al., 2007).
