Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil. Some 300 million olive trees—200 million of those in Andalucía—produce nearly 1.5 million tons of olive oil annually. The number has risen significantly over the last few years and, according to the International Olive Council, now totals three times more than Italy and well over four times more than Greece.
Cultivation in Spain goes back 3,000 years. The olive tree was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Phoenicians and the Greeks, the Romans expanded cultivation, and the Moors, who ruled the south for many centuries, perfected techniques of farming irrigation and pressing oil. Spain grows more than 250 varieties of olives, though only two dozen or so are used regularly in oil production.
The top producers still follow traditional, age-old methods of hand harvesting. To begin with, they never use fallen olives. During the November-to-January harvest, green tarps are laid out under the trees, and workers “rake” the branches using a small plastic brush (or sometimes vibrating “fingers”) or else knock the fruit loose with a pole. The tarp is gradually rolled up, with the olives gathering in one end. They are transferred by the handful to buckets, and from there into a tractor trailer to be taken to the mill (almazara), where they are pressed within twenty-four hours of harvesting. As one producer told me, the quality of the olive oil is a reflection of the state of the olive when harvested and pressed.
In Andalucía, many oils are blended from different varieties. This tradition of diversification is “a way of making sure there are always ripe olives during the harvest,” Francisco Núñez de Prado told me as we strolled through his family’s ample groves containing some 100,000 trees. But it is also because the majority of the olives grown in Andalucía are the robust, deeply intense, and spicy Picual variety. These are generally blended with some smoother, more aromatic oil pressed from other varieties in the family’s eighteenth-century mill. Núñez de Prado, for instance, presses and blends three varieties of olives: Picual, mellow Picuda, and, for fruitiness and aroma, Hojiblanca (white-leaf). The result is a full-bodied oil with spicy aftertones. In dry years, the olives are spicy and bitter with little aroma; with rain, they become fruitier. “There are no fixed percentages in our blend.”
Oils made from a single variety of olive are called monovarietals. Arbequina oil, in particular, stands out.
The center of Arbequina production is near Lleida in Les Garrigues, which lies about halfway between Barcelona and Zaragoza. It is the driest place in Catalunya, and has one of the most extreme climates. The steep ridges and tiered slopes of the craggy landscape are packed with olive and almond trees. The autochthonous olive here is Arbequina, a blueberry-size variety that ripens to greens and yellows blushed with purple, and produces the sweetest, most aromatic of any of the oils. The cold, first pressing of early harvested Arbequina olives yields little—perhaps just 7 percent of the olive’s weight in oil. (Depending on the olive variety, maturity, and extraction process, that number can reach 30 percent.) But the result is hyper-aromatic oil, grassy and fresh, hinting of bananas and almonds and even tomatoes. In the mouth, the taste is smooth and fruity, almost sweet.
Each variety (or even blend) of olive oil has its optimal use in the kitchen. Bolder oils go well on toasted bread; cold “soups” like gazpacho (see page 60), salmorejo (see page 62), and ajo blanco (see page 59); and desserts like oranges with honey and olive oil (see page 292). I prefer fruitier Arbequina oils on green salads or oven-roasted fish. Like pairing wines with food, the key is not to overwhelm—or underwhelm—but to find the balance where the nuances can be fully appreciated.