Olive Varieties of Greece: A Field Guide
Greeks eat more olive oil per head than anyone on earth, and their olive culture is ancient and unbroken. Beyond the famous Kalamata lies a whole country of olives — here is the guide.
Greece’s relationship with the olive is older than its temples. It presses some of the world’s finest oil and grows some of its best-loved table olives — and most of it is far better known by two names than it should be.
The two famous names
The Kalamata — the almond-shaped purple table olive, protected to its region in the Peloponnese — and the tiny Koroneiki, the oil olive behind a great many of the world’s award-winning extra virgins, grown above all on Crete and across the Peloponnese (with the hill-country Tsounati beside it).
The table olives
The big green Halkidiki of the north, made for stuffing; the everyday Konservolia (sold as Amfissa, Volos, Pelion); the tree-ripened, naturally sweet Throuba of Thassos; and the refined Athinolia of Laconia.
The islands
Lesvos alone, carpeted in millions of trees, gives two great oil olives: the soft, golden Adramytini and the hardy Kolovi. Attica has its Megaritiki.
Two things worth knowing. Much of Greece’s superb Koroneiki is still sold cheaply in bulk and bottled abroad under other flags — which means single-origin Greek oil is often world-class value. And beware the look-alikes: a “Kalamata” far from Greece may be a Peruvian Alfonso in disguise, as we explain in the great olive name swap.