Maurino Olives
A pollinator and light-oil olive from central Italy: delicate, fragrant, faintly minty.
The Maurino is a central Italian olive valued, like the Pendolino, both as a pollinator and for a delicate oil of its own. Grown across Tuscany and the Marche among Frantoio and Leccino, it gives a light, fragrant, fresh oil with a characteristic faint hint of mint and almond. A graceful, useful tree that helps the famous Tuscan blends along.
- Origin
- Tuscany / Marche · Italy
- Type
- Oil olive + pollinator
- Colour
- Green to black
- Flavour (oil)
- Light, fragrant, minty-almond
- Role
- Pollinator for Frantoio/Leccino
- Ripens
- Early
- Best for
- Delicate oil, grove pollination
The fragrant little pollinator
Like the weeping Pendolino, the Maurino does much of its quiet work in the grove, pollinating the great Tuscan varieties around it — but it also gives a charming oil of its own: light, aromatic and fresh, with an unusual whisper of mint alongside the almond. It ripens early and is productive, which makes it a useful all-rounder in central-Italian plantings.
You will rarely see a single-variety Maurino oil — its job is mostly to help the Frantoio and Leccino fruit, and to lift a blend with its fragrance. But it is part of why a classic Tuscan extra virgin tastes the way it does.