There Nocellara del Belice it is a typical variety of the Trapani area, in particular it has its maximum expression in Castelvetrano. Like the Tonda Iblea, it has a dual purpose, also for the production of table olives. While one produces black olives, the Nocellara del Belice produces green ones. In the last 20 years it has been mostly used to make oil.
Cultivated both irrigated (in fact, water is needed to make a table olive) and dry, its tree has medium vigor in size, is very broad and expanded and has fairly large leaves. Compared to the Tonda Iblea the size is double. The oil yield is not high but medium-low, one of the characteristics of the table olive. Precisely for this reason, he has an excellent relationship stone pulp with decidedly pulpy olives.
Pinkies (precursor of flowering, ed.) are medium sized with a low number of flowers. The fruit it has a notable weight of at least 7 grams, very round with a spherical shape. At veraison (phenological phase of fruit ripening) it never becomes black but dark purple. The color of the leaf is intense green on both sides.
The oil has a fair amount of oleic acid which exceeds 75% with a discreet presence of linoleic and palmitic acid. The presence of polyphenols – given that it is a dual purpose variety – is also high and reaches 300 ppm (parts per million).
The organoleptic characteristics they see a production of very pleasant, quite rich and herbaceous oils. Together with the Tonda Iblea, the Nocellara del Belice has brought Sicilian oil to be known throughout the world. Present strong notes of artichoke and green tomato and sometimes produces a pleasant sensation of olive leaf. When the olives are very unripe it approaches the olfactory sensation of the Tonda Iblea, i.e. the tomato leaf.
From a sensorial point of view it is classified in the intense category, with a fairly present bitterness and spiciness. Thanks to the good quality of polyphenols it is a fairly long-lived oil.
As with the Tonda Iblea, it can be combined with very robust dishes or salads with the presence of green tomatoes because it enhances the characteristic.
Text collected by Enrica Iacono
