Every kind of olive worth knowing, one honest page each: where it grows, what it tastes like, how it is cured, what to cook with it, and what the sellers would rather you didn’t know. From Kalamata and Castelvetrano to Arbequina and Picholine, filter the types of olives by country below.
Or open a country’s own page : Italy · Spain · Greece · France · United States · Türkiye · Peru · Portugal · Tunisia · Morocco · Croatia · Argentina · Egypt · Slovenia · Algeria · Montenegro · Albania
The famous oil olive of the Greek island of Lesvos — the same cultivar grown across…
The backbone of Provence’s AOC oils — a green-picked olive giving a fresh, artichoke-and-almond oil. Dual-purpose,…
The large purple South-American olive, wine-cured to resemble a Kalamata — good in its own right,…
The protected cracked green olive of Málaga — split and fresh-cured with thyme, fennel and garlic,…
South America’s most distinctive olive — a large green Argentine variety from La Rioja, often cracked…
Arbequina olives: the mild Catalan olive behind everyday oil, how to eat it, and how to…
The compact, early-bearing Catalan olive planted in super-high-density hedgerows worldwide — Arbequina’s partner, giving a fruity,…
The large, tender green olive of Ascoli Piceno — the heart of olive all’ascolana, stuffed with…
A prized dual-purpose olive of Laconia in the Peloponnese — giving an elegant, fruity oil and…
The prized oil olive of the Ayvalık and Edremit gulf in north-west Türkiye — the same…
One of Sicily’s most ancient varieties — a pale, delicate, sweet oil with light almond and…
The small, pale Levantine-Spanish olive of Alicante — giving an aromatic, fruity, gently bitter oil, and…
The dominant olive of Sardinia — a robust, aromatic, well-keeping oil with artichoke, cardoon and almond…
A traditional Provençal oil olive — giving a green, fresh oil with artichoke and almond notes,…
The native oil olive of Istria — hardy and intense, giving a green, bitter, peppery, high-polyphenol…
The leading olive of Calabria — a large fruit good as a green table olive and…
The signature olive of Lake Garda — grown at the northern edge of the olive world,…
Castelvetrano olives are Sicilian Nocellara del Belice, lye cured and never fermented. Why they stay so…
The small, tough oil olive of Puglia’s Salento — a fruity, characterful oil, and one of…
Named for the cherry-red blush of its ripening fruit — a bold, green, fruity western Sicilian…
Cerignola olives are the giant, mild green olives of Puglia. How they taste, how they are…
The elongated Valencian oil olive — productive and distinctive, giving a fruity, aromatic oil with a…
The dominant olive of Algeria’s Kabylie mountains — hardy and dual-purpose, giving a fruity, golden oil…
The small, hardy olive that dominates Tunisian groves — a drought-tough tree giving a mild, sweet,…
The oil olive of northern Tunisia — greener, more bitter and peppery than the southern Chemlali,…
The hardy, aromatic olive of Trás-os-Montes — a bolder, higher-polyphenol oil that gives Portuguese blends backbone…
Coquillo is a small, mild black olive from Murcia, Spain, a close cousin of the true…
Coratina — Puglia's fierce, peppery, high-polyphenol oil olive.
Cornicabra — central Spain's robust, well-keeping oil olive.
The large green table olive of the Turkish Aegean, around Akhisar — mild and crisp, often…
The signature olive of Abruzzo around Loreto Aprutino — giving a fresh, fruity, well-balanced oil with…
Empeltre is a slender black olive from Aragon's Ebro valley: mild at the table, pressed into…
A huge share of “extra virgin” olive oil isn’t. Here’s the 30-second kitchen test — from…
The ancient Spanish olive of the Maestrat — the variety behind the world’s great millennial olive…
Frantoio — Tuscany's benchmark oil olive.
Gaeta olives are soft black olives from Lazio, usually the Itrana variety, cured in dry salt…
The historic Portuguese olive — small, sweet and dual-purpose, the traditional heart of Ribatejo and Alentejo…
Gemlik — Turkey's beloved soft black breakfast olive.
Gordal means "the fat one" in Spanish: a big, meaty green olive from Seville, sold in…
The plump black table olive of the Vallée des Baux in Provence — soft, fruity and…
The large, crisp green olive of northern Greece — firm enough to stuff with almond, pepper…
Hojiblanca — Andalusia's versatile dual-purpose Spanish olive.
The leading oil olive of Slovenian Istria — intense, bitter and peppery, very high in polyphenols,…
The dual-purpose olive of Lazio — cured ripe it becomes the famous Gaeta olive, picked late…
What a true Kalamata is, how it’s cured, the dyed-black fakes to avoid, and the best…
The most important olive of Albania, around Vlorë — hardy and dual-purpose, giving a fruity, robust…
The hardy oil olive of Lesvos also called Valanolia — productive and adaptable, giving a fruity,…
Greece’s most widely grown table olive — dual green-or-black, mild and round, known by its regions:…
Koroneiki — the small Greek olive behind many of the world’s award-winning extra virgin oils.
Leccino — Italy's gentle, dependable oil olive and Frantoio's blending partner.
The tough, dependable Andalusian olive also called Zorzaleño — a drought-hardy tree giving a fluid, fresh,…
Lucques — France’s elegant crescent-shaped green olive: crisp, sweet and buttery.
A traditional Trás-os-Montes olive — dual-purpose, giving a rounded, fruity oil and a good table olive,…
The versatile olive of Extremadura and the Sierra de Gata — a fine green table olive…
Manzanilla — the small, firm, all-purpose Spanish olive that fills most of the world’s green-olive jars.
A central Italian pollinator and light oil olive — planted among Frantoio and Leccino, giving a…
The dual-purpose olive of Megara and Attica, around Athens — a hardy tree giving both a…
The leading oil olive of south-west Türkiye — grown around Muğla and Aydın, giving a robust,…
Mission — California's historic olive, brought by Spanish missionaries.
The robust, peppery oil olive of Umbria, Tuscany and the Marche — high in polyphenols, the…
A traditional olive of Extremadura and the Tierra de Barros — dual-purpose for a fruity oil…
Nice's own small dark olive — the real Niçoise, the Cailletier cultivar, and a protected name…
The bright-green Sicilian cultivar sold cured as the famous Castelvetrano — and pressed into a fine…
Sicily’s dual-purpose olive of the slopes of Mount Etna — a good green or black table…
The prized olive of Brisighella in Emilia-Romagna — one of Italy’s northernmost, giving a fresh, fruity,…
The olive of Nyons — France’s first AOP olive: a sweet, nutty, wrinkled black olive of…
The dominant olive of the Croatian Adriatic — hardy, dual-purpose, giving a fruity, gently bitter oil…
The mild, sweet oil olive of the Bari countryside — the gentle partner to the fierce…
The graceful weeping olive of central Italy — a key pollinator for Frantoio and Leccino, and…
The elegant dual-purpose olive of northern Puglia’s Daunia — of French ancestry, giving a delicate, sweet,…
The variety that covers nearly all of Morocco’s groves — dual-purpose for the green Moroccan table…
The slender, nutty, crunchy green olive of the French Midi — table and oil, plus substitutes.
Picual — the world’s most-pressed oil olive: bold, peppery, antioxidant-rich and slow to go rancid.
The aromatic Andalusian olive of Córdoba — named for its beak-like tip, giving a sweet, fragrant,…
The versatile olive of Lazio, Marche and Abruzzo — giving a sweet, fruity, well-rounded oil and…
A rare large dark olive of the Cazorla hills in Jaén — a regional speciality, dual-purpose…
Provence’s classic table olive — the “olives cassées” of the Vallée des Baux, cracked and cured…
The very large green table olive of California — of Spanish Sevillian descent, the giant crisp…
Taggiasca — Liguria's small sweet olive; kin to the Niçoise.
The Provençal cultivar cured into the famous wrinkled black Nyons olive — France’s first AOP olive…
Throuba olives from Thassos, Greece, lose their bitterness on the branch and are then dry-salted. How…
The large, apple-shaped green olive of Egypt — crisp and mild, a staple of the Egyptian…
The award-winning olive of the Monti Iblei in south-east Sicily — a green, tomato-and-herb-scented oil that…
The hardy hill olive of Crete and the Peloponnese — grown higher and cooler than the…
The late-ripening, robust olive of Trás-os-Montes — staying green into winter and giving a green, peppery,…
The hardy late-harvest olive of Extremadura and Málaga — staying green well into winter, giving a…
The Valencian oil olive often blended with Blanqueta — giving a fruity, aromatic, gently bitter oil…
The dominant olive of Montenegro’s coast around Bar — home to the Stara Maslina, one of…