A small thing worth knowing about olive names

After enough years around olives, you notice that a famous name is often a style as much as a place. A “Niçoise” on a menu is frequently a Spanish Coquillo, cured the Niçoise way. A “Kalamata” is often an Alfonso from Peru, wine-cured to the same deep purple. Even “Picholine” is by now as much Moroccan as French — the Picholine Marocaine covers most of Morocco’s groves and travels the world under the French name.

None of it is a scandal. The name follows the variety and the cure, not the soil, and most sellers are straight about it — the little word “style” on a label is the honest tell. It just helps to know, so the olive you carry home is the one you meant to buy.