In Focus: The Aglandau Olive
The Aglandau is the workhorse and the pride of Provence at once — the region’s most widely planted variety, grown from the Vaucluse to the Alpilles. Also called Beruguette or Verdale de Carpentras, it gives one of France’s most characterful oils: green, intense and peppery, a clear step away from the soft Provençal stereotype.
The variety
Aglandau is a medium, firm-fleshed olive planted widely across south-eastern France and central to several Provençal AOP oils, including Provence, Haute-Provence and the Vallée des Baux. It is valued for its hardiness, its reliability and its excellent oil. Picked green and early, it yields a vivid extra virgin with strong notes of fresh-cut grass, artichoke and almond, and a genuine peppery bite — more robust and longer-keeping than many southern French oils. As a table olive it is also cured green, staying firm and crisp with a clean, faintly bitter flavour.
In the bottle and on the plate
Aglandau’s oil is the variety’s real glory. Its high stability and assertive, green character make it both a fine finishing oil and a Provençal AOP backbone, often blended with softer locals like Salonenque and Grossane to round it out. Use a single-variety Aglandau raw, where its grassy, peppery punch can carry — over tomatoes, grilled vegetables, goat’s cheese or a Provençal soupe au pistou. As a table olive it makes a crisp, savoury nibble. Either way, it shows that Provence can do intensity as well as it does mellow charm.
If you think southern French oil is always soft and buttery, a single-variety Aglandau will set you straight — it has real green pepper and grip. Look for a Provençal AOP and a recent harvest date, and use it raw to keep that character. The variety also keeps better than most thanks to its stability, but it is still best fresh, so buy in quantities you will finish within the year.
From French AOP records and Provençal milling tradition.