KalamataΚαλαμάτα

Appearance & taste

The oil is greenish to greenish-yellow. It has a medium fruitiness with an aroma of green olives, slight bitterness and slight to medium pungency; sensory defects are not permitted. The free acidity is at most 0.5 g per 100 g of oil.

According to the specification, its distinguishing feature is the fatty acid profile with a very high level of oleic acid (70–80 %), together with palmitic acid (10–15 %), linoleic acid (4–11 %), stearic acid (2–4 %) and palmitoleic acid (0.6–1.2 %). The sterol content is over 1,100 mg per kg.

Every label carries a code made up of the letters KA, the label’s serial number and the last two digits of the year of production. In retail, containers of up to 5 litres are allowed.

Production

The oil is made mainly from olives of the Koroneiki variety, with at most 5 % Mastoidis. The harvest usually begins at the end of October, when the olives turn from green to greenish-yellow, and lasts about four to six weeks, until around half have turned dark. Harvesting is done by hand, with combs or with shakers onto sheets under the trees; olives from the ground may not be processed.

The olives go to the mill, which must be in Messinia, in ventilated crates or sacks of plant fibre. At most 24 hours pass between harvest and finished oil. The olives are de-leafed, washed and crushed, the paste is malaxed for 20 to 30 minutes and the oil is separated by pressing or centrifuging; at no step may the temperature exceed 27 °C. The oil is stored in stainless steel containers at no more than 24 °C. It may also be bottled outside the area if traceability is ensured.

Origin & history

Messinia lies in the south-west of the Peloponnese, bounded by the river Neda and the mountains of Arcadia, by Taygetos, by the Messinian Gulf and by the Ionian Sea. Olive groves cover around 100,000 ha. The climate is temperate Mediterranean to subtropical, with mild winters, long, hot summers, 750 to 800 mm of rain a year and more than 3,000 hours of sunshine. The trees mostly grow on hilly, well-ventilated ground with slightly calcareous, sandy-loam soils. The growers prune them into a cup shape with three to four main branches so that they get plenty of light.

Olives have been produced in the area since the earliest times. At the Palace of Nestor near Chora, 1,200 clay tablets in Linear B were found which bear witness to the importance of the olive in the 14th and 13th centuries BC; near Karpofora, olive stones from around 1900 BC were found. The Koroneiki variety is named after the coastal town of Koroni in the south-east of the area. The oil used to be traded through the ports of Methoni and Navarino, today’s Pylos.