22-05-2018
Picual Olive Oil
The Picual variety is the predominant variety of the Iberian Peninsula and of the world. Today, there are close to one million hectares that produce Picual olive oil in Spain. This variety is produced mainly in Jaen, Cordoba and Granada. The Picual variety is also known as “Nevado”, “Nevado Blanco” or “Morcona”. In Andalusia it is also named “Marteño”, owing its name to the locality it comes from.
The olive and the leaf of the Picual
The name of this variety is because of the V-shape of the olive. The leaf of the Picual is short and medium size compared to the Hojiblanco´s leaf. The colour of the front side is dark green and its underside is light green – greyish.
Organoleptic of Picual´s olive Oil
Before starting it is important to highlight that for the picual olive oil to have the organoleptic characteristics to which we hereafter refer we must be speaking of a Picual Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) or Virgin Olive Oil (VOO).
The sensory characteristic of the Picual olive oil vary greatly depending on whether it is a ripe or a green fruit. In a ripe fruity what dominates in nose is the ripe tomato and the fig tree. In mouth prevails the tomato and fig tree and notes of bitter almond. The green fruit is predominantly herbaceous with tomato aromas olive tree leaf and grass of the field. In mouth stands out the bitter almond, nut, the artichoke, green bean and the peel of the green banana. During our tasting course of one week in the IFAPA, we learned that under certain conditions a Picual may resemble an Arbequino olive oil. This is the case of a Portuguese Picual that we tasted, which was harvested in the second week of November. In nose it had green fruit and a sweet entrance in mouth, follow by a spiciness in throat with a green banana aftertaste. With this we want to show to our great readers the wide range that a Picual can offer and how its organoleptic characteristics can vary depending on the harvest time, the rain, the soil….
Physico-chemical properties of Picual Olive Oil
The Picual olive oil is one of the varieties with a greater level of oleic acid in the market. For example, the level of monounsaturated fats in a sunflower olive oil can be around 40%, in an Arbequino olive oil around 65%, while a Picual olive oil has around 80% of those fats. Picual olive oil has polyphenols. Polyphenols are the natural antioxidants that protect our cells from the oxidation while giving stability to the olive oil preventing the oxidation, what is named rancidity.
Which are the characteristics of the Picual Olive Oil from Suerte Alta?
Our organic EVOO is harvested the first fortnight of November. It is a green fruit, herbaceous in nose, with notes of tomato, citrus and green leaf of the olive tree.
The low rainfall and the high temperatures of Albendín, where the estate is located, encourage the hydric stress of our olive grove in summer, so the olive tree reacts producing a high level of polyphenols. Our Picual olive oil sometimes are over 1000 ppm of total polyphenols.
What we look for is to achieve a Picual olive oil with high level of polyphenols but balanced in bitterness and spiciness, very versatile in cuisine, that is very appreciated by our clients.
