In Focus: The Nocellara del Belice Olive
Round, vivid green and buttery-crisp, the Nocellara del Belice is one of the few olives that genuinely excels at both jobs — a superb table fruit and the base of one of Sicily’s best oils. From the Belice valley in the west of the island, it is the olive often sold abroad simply as “Castelvetrano,” after the town at its heart.
The variety
Nocellara del Belice carries a PDO covering several towns around Castelvetrano in Trapani province. The fruit is plump and almost spherical, with thick, crisp flesh and a small stone. As a table olive it is picked young and given a gentle natural cure, keeping that startling grass-green colour and a mild, sweet, faintly buttery taste with none of the bitterness most green olives carry. The same variety, grown and pressed for oil, yields a fragrant green extra virgin with notes of tomato leaf, almond and fresh herbs — balanced rather than aggressive.
Table and oil
The famous bright Castelvetrano table olive owes its colour partly to a quick, traditional cure that preserves the natural green rather than letting the fruit oxidise. Eaten cold, it is crunchy, juicy and disarmingly sweet — the olive even avowed olive-skeptics tend to like. The oil deserves equal billing: medium-fruity, lightly peppery, excellent raw over fish, white beans or ripe tomatoes. Few varieties give you both a great olive and a great oil from the same tree, which is exactly why Sicilian growers treasure it.
That electric green should come from a careful cure, not a dye — a reputable Castelvetrano olive lists only olives, water, salt and perhaps a little lactic acid. If the colour looks unnaturally fluorescent and the label is vague, be wary. For the oil, look for “Nocellara del Belice” or the Valle del Belice PDO and a recent harvest date, and use it raw where its fresh, green character can shine.
From Italian PDO records and tasting Sicilian oils at source.