After a bit of a decline in olive oil output during the Seventies and Eighties, Oli de Mallorca has come back with a vengeance. Production of olive oil in Mallorca had its high point during the 18th and 19th century. Then, Archduke Luis Salvador of Austria commented on its qualities and also, on the use of olive oil on a typical Mallorcan dish, the pa amb oli. I’ll save an entry on that speciality for a day in the future, if I may.

There now exists a Denominación de Origen certification for Mallorcan olive oil. Mallorcan d’O olive oil is today famed all over. Expect to pay between 7 € and 13 € for a 500 ml bottle, and between 9,50 € and 15 € for a 750 ml bottle. One should always buy olive oil in dark glass bottles instead of in the clear glass variety, or else in a metal container. There is at least one Mallorcan olive oil on the market, to my knowledge, offering an organic variety; it is approved by the Consell Balear Producció Agrària Ecológica.

Mallorca’s most common types of olives are Picual (shown in my photo), Arbequina and Empeltre, but there also are the Hojiblanca, Manzanilla, Sivellina, Pico Limon, Koroneki, Frantoio, Picuda, Gordal, Lechin, Blanqueta, Farga and Cornicabra varieties. There are said to be perhaps 200,000 olive trees in Mallorca, most of them of a ripe old age, covering a total area of some 2,000 hectares of land, most of which in one or another part of the Tramuntana mountains.

You can find the organic olive oil and a range of other fine makes, at the XI Fira de s’Oliva in Caimari, today and tomorrow, November 15th and 16th. Caimari is one village up from Selva, between Inca and Lluc.

The photo was taken in Caimari, Mallorca, Spain. The date: November 12th, 2008. The time was 12:25:46.