Kalamon
The large, elongated, freestone olive sold everywhere as "Kalamata". Worth getting straight: Kalamon is the variety, while Kalamata PDO olive oil is made from Koroneiki — so a bottle of Kalamata PDO oil contains no Kalamon at all.
In the grove
Kalamon is grown across mainland Greece — Aetoloakarnania, Laconia, Fthiotida, Messinia, Arkadia and Ilia — and has recently expanded into Thessaly, Macedonia, Epirus, Samos and Crete. It is strongly vigorous with a spreading habit, roots poorly, and yields high but alternate crops. It is salt resistant and moderately cold resistant but sensitive to excessive heat, and comparatively untroubled by knot, Verticillium and fly.
Its fruit is what it is grown for: large, elongated, with a high flesh-to-stone ratio and a stone that releases cleanly, and a colour that survives natural black fermentation. Its oil is a minor product but not a negligible one — in the Greek national phenolic dataset Kalamon sits among the highest-mean varieties and produced the single highest value recorded in the country, 4,003 mg/kg.
Compared with the other reference cultivars
| Cultivar | Origin | Typical polyphenols | Sensory profile | Best pairing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalamon | Messinia, Greece | Among the highest-mean Greek varieties | Not published for the oil | The olive itself — salads, tapenade, bread |
| Picual | Jaén, Spain | 300–700 mg/kg | Intensely green, clean bitterness, late-building pungency | Tomato salad, grilled vegetables, bread and salt |
| Coratina | Puglia, Italy | 330–410 mg/kg | Powerfully green and herbaceous, strong bitterness and pungency | Bean soups, grilled meat, bitter greens |
| Koroneiki | Messinia, Greece | Around the Greek mean; Cretan surveys 138–441 mg/kg | Green and aromatic, balanced bitterness and pungency | Greek salad, feta, grilled fish, horta |
| Arbequina | Lleida, Spain | 200–230 mg/kg | Soft, sweet entry, barely bitter, light pungency | Fish, salads, baking, mayonnaise |
| Manaki | Central Greece | Not published | Mild and fruity, apple and tomato | Steamed greens, fresh cheese, delicate fish |
| Tsounati | Crete and the Peloponnese, Greece | 173–641 mg/kg | Not published from a primary source | Cretan cooking — pulses, wild greens, rusks |
| Megaritiki | Attica, Greece | Not published | Harmonious and sweet-fruity, medium-high bitterness and pungency | Everyday cooking, vegetables, pulses |
Polyphenol figures are the ranges published for each variety, not measurements of any bottle in the library. A single oil's figure depends on when it was picked and how it was milled, and is shown on that oil's own page where the producer states one.