Tanche Olives
Le cépage provençal confit en célèbre olive noire et ridée de Nyons — la première AOP d’olive de France.
The Tanche is the Provençal cultivar behind the famous Nyons olive — another case of one olive wearing a place-name. Grown around Nyons and Buis-les-Baronnies in the Drôme, it ripens to a dark, wrinkled black olive, cured sweet and mild, which became France’s first AOP olive. It also presses into a sweet, mild, golden oil with little bitterness.
- Origin
- Nyons / Drôme · France
- Type
- Table & oil
- Colour
- Wrinkled black
- Cured as
- Olive de Nyons (AOP)
- Flavour
- Sweet, mild, nutty
- Note
- Same cultivar as Nyons
- Best for
- Sweet black table olives, mild oil
One cultivar, a famous name
Like the Itrana behind Gaeta, or the Nocellara behind Castelvetrano, the Tanche is the variety and Nyons is what you call it once cured. Left to ripen fully and gently cured, the Tanche becomes the soft, sweet, slightly wrinkled black olive of Nyons — the first French olive to earn an AOP, in 1994. Its oil is golden, sweet and mild, low in bitterness, a gentle Provençal style.
Because the Nyons name is protected and prized, look for the AOP if you want the real thing — a genuine Tanche from the Drôme, not a generic wrinkled black olive. The sweet, mild, slightly nutty character is the mark of a true one. See the Nyons page for more.