Languedoc Extra Virgin Olive Oil Receives PDO Certification

Languedoc extra vir­gin olive oil from France has received a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the European Commission.

The French olive oil was added to the European Union’s geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tions (GI) reg­is­ter for food prod­ucts under Huile d’olive du Languedoc on October 31^st, after the appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted to the Commission in December 2020.

The com­mis­sion spec­i­fied that Languedoc is a mul­ti­va­ri­etal olive oil chiefly pro­duced from olives of the Lucques and Olivière vari­eties or a blend of the two with other tra­di­tional local olive vari­eties. Each main vari­ety must account for no more than 70 per­cent of the oil.

“Languedoc olive oil is now offi­cially rec­og­nized as a pro­tected des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin (PDO),” a press release by the French National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO) said. ​“This recog­ni­tion val­ues the prac­tices devel­oped over time by local olive grow­ers.”

“[The oil] is char­ac­ter­ized by aro­mas of tomato and almond, some­times accom­pa­nied by notes of apple, both olfac­tory and gus­ta­tory mod­er­ate bit­ter­ness and acid­ity on the palate,” the press release also stated.

Languedoc extra vir­gin olive oil is pro­duced in the Aude and Hérault geo­graph­i­cal depart­ments in the coastal region of Languedoc in south­ern France, which stretches from Provence to the Pyrenees Mountains on the country’s bor­der with Spain.

The PDO label cer­ti­fies that the spe­cific organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics of Languedoc extra vir­gin olive oil are due to the geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion and local know-how in olive oil pro­duc­tion. It also com­mu­ni­cates the qual­ity of the oil to European con­sumers.

Conversely, for a bot­tle of olive oil to be rec­og­nized as Languedoc PDO, it must com­ply with strict spec­i­fi­ca­tions relat­ing to the grow­ing and pro­cess­ing of olives and the bot­tling of olive oil.

“It took 13 years to get there,” said Jean-Bernard Gieules, the head of the Lucques and Languedoc olive oil union. ​“This is a real recog­ni­tion that began with the AOC [Appellation d’origine con­trôlée] in 2020. And it com­pleted the rep­u­ta­tion [of the oil].”

Languedoc boasts a cen­turies-old tra­di­tion in olive grow­ing, with his­tor­i­cal records show­ing that the local econ­omy was pri­mar­ily olive-based from the mid-10^th cen­tury. By 1950, the area boasted a total of 150 olive oil mills.

However, the his­toric frost of 1956, when tem­per­a­tures plunged from 21 ºC dur­ing the day to –17 ºC at night, wiped out the olive groves through­out the region, dev­as­tat­ing the local olive oil indus­try, which started to flour­ish again in the 1980s.

More than 100 olive farm­ers now grow olive trees of Lucques and Olivière vari­eties on 192 hectares.

The offi­cial recog­ni­tion of Languedoc olive oil by the European Commission raises the num­ber of French olive oils pro­tected across the E.U. with a des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin sta­tus to nine.

• INAO
• DIS-LEUR