Local produce DOP

Nocellara del Belice

Large green olive, buttery flavour, dual-purpose

also known as oliva di castelvetrano, castelvetrano olive

Castelvetrano · Sicily

Nocellara del Belice

A large, green olive with firm flesh and a buttery flavour: Nocellara del Belice, sold in America as «Castelvetrano olive», has held DOP status since 1998.

A cultivar native to the Belice Valley, probably brought to Sicily by the Greeks: a large green olive, with firm, fleshy pulp and a delicate, buttery flavour. It is dual-purpose — for the table and for oil — and makes up at least seventy per cent of Valle del Belice DOP extra virgin olive oil.

In the United States and elsewhere it is sold as «Castelvetrano olive», after the best-known town in the area; but the regulations cover a wider territory, across the provinces of Trapani and Agrigento: Castelvetrano, Campobello di Mazara, Partanna, Santa Ninfa, Gibellina, Poggioreale, Salaparuta, Santa Margherita di Belice and Montevago.

Protected Designation of Origin status arrived in 1998, both for the Nocellara del Belice table olive and for Valle del Belice oil: two separate recognitions for the same cultivar.

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