`Majorcan Table Olives Win European Protection - Olive Oil Times
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Majorcan Table Olives Win European Protection

By Julie Butler
Mar. 13, 2014 08:25 UTC

Wild olive trees pro­vide the root­stock and a native olive vari­ety the fruit which becomes ​“Aceituna de Mallorca” — the table olives from the Spanish island of Majorca just added to the list of pro­tected agri-food prod­ucts in the European Union.

The reg­is­tra­tion as a pro­tected des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin (PDO) actu­ally cov­ers three vari­ants of the same small Majorcan olive: whole green, bruised green and nat­ural black table olives.

Among their claimed fea­tures are a ​‘float­ing stone’, which is a pit only loosely attached to the olive flesh, a char­ac­ter­is­tic bit­ter­ness, ​“due to the high polyphe­nol con­tent,” and a fat con­tent with a melt­ing point under 39 °C (102 °F), said to deliver a creamy mouth feel ​“prized by con­sumers”.

Expertise in graft­ing, har­vest­ing by hand

But it’s the causal links between an area and the qual­ity or char­ac­ter­is­tics of a prod­uct that are key for PDO list­ing and in this case the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments say the main fac­tors are:

- Climate and soil: the com­bi­na­tion of a Mediterranean cli­mate and limey soil endow the olives with ​“a high level of polyphe­nols, which gives them the bit­ter taste…so typ­i­cal of the Majorcan olive.”

- Genetic char­ac­ter­is­tics: the island’s hardy, rain-fed wild olive trees (Olea euro­pea var. sylvestris) have long pro­vided the root­stock onto which the native Majorcan olive vari­ety — known for poor root growth — is grafted. Interestingly, though dif­fer­ent to the vari­ety of the same name on main­land Spain, this indige­nous vari­ety is called ​‘empel­tre’ after the Catalan word for ​‘graft’.

- Agronomic resources: the olives are picked by hand and in stages — before win­ter for the whole green olives and bruised green olives, and after win­ter for the nat­ural black ones.

- Distinctive pro­duc­tion method: this includes the tra­di­tional fla­vor­ing of the bruised green olives with fen­nel and chili pep­pers from the island, and the addi­tion of Majorcan olive oil to the nat­ural black olives, increas­ing their char­ac­ter­is­tic ​“unc­tu­ous­ness”.

Consumers will­ing to pay more

Table olives have long fea­tured in the gas­tron­omy of not just Majorca but other Balearic islands. An 1871 book said they and bread accom­pa­nied every meal and that the aver­age rural fam­ily salted about 200kg a year for their own use.

The impor­tance of olives there is also reflected in old songs and say­ings, includ­ing one along the lines of ​“For the olive and the acorn, they help har­vest both the big and small” — a ref­er­ence to the whole fam­ily hav­ing to pitch in. Other sources refer to size­able exports of table olives from Majorca between the eigh­teenth and early nine­teenth cen­turies, such as to the West Indies and South America.

A doc­u­ment pub­lished by the Spanish gov­ern­ment said stud­ies show many Majorcans still con­sume their local table olives as a snack or with the typ­i­cal tomato-rubbed bread with olive oil. It also said an indi­ca­tion of their fond­ness for the local vari­ety is that a 2011 study found the retail price for Majorcan table olives was 42 per­cent higher than the aver­age price for all table olives.

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