Cellina di Nardò Olives
La petite olive à huile rustique du Salento, dans les Pouilles — et l’une des variétés anciennes au cœur de la crise de Xylella.
The Cellina di Nardò is a small, hardy oil olive of the Salento, the deep south of Puglia. With the Ogliarola, it long carpeted the Salento’s vast, ancient groves, giving a fruity, characterful oil. It is also, sadly, one of the varieties hit hardest by Xylella fastidiosa, the bacterial disease that has devastated southern Puglia’s old olive trees since 2013.
- Origin
- Salento, southern Puglia · Italy
- Type
- Oil olive
- Colour
- Green to black
- Size
- Small
- Flavour (oil)
- Fruity, characterful
- Note
- Hard-hit by Xylella
- Best for
- Robust southern oil
An ancient olive under threat
The Salento’s landscape was, for centuries, an ocean of monumental olive trees — many of them Cellina di Nardò and Ogliarola — pressing a fruity, robust oil. The variety is hardy and productive, well suited to the hot, dry heel of Italy.
Since 2013 the Salento has been ravaged by Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterial pathogen spread by insects that has killed millions of old olive trees, Cellina di Nardò among the worst affected. Replanting now favours resistant varieties. It is a sobering reminder that even a 2,000-year-old olive landscape is not invulnerable — and worth knowing when you see “Salento” oil.