Picholine
The reference French cocktail olive — lye-treated then brine-fermented for up to a year — and the sole principal variety of AOP Nîmes. Its name has been borrowed by an unrelated Moroccan cultivar that now dominates an entire national industry.
In the grove
Picholine comes from Collias in the Gard, between Uzès and Remoulins, and is the principal variety of AOP Nîmes. It is of medium vigour with a spreading habit, partially self-fertile, and grown for both green table olives — picked October to November — and oil from later, blacker fruit. Oil yield is 20 to 22%, falling to 15 to 18% under irrigation.
The identity question is worth spelling out, because it is the single most common confusion in olive-oil reference material. Picholine Marocaine is a different cultivar: the IOC catalogue lists the two separately with different SSR profiles at all five published loci, and Moroccan breeding programmes cross them as two distinct parents. Picholine Marocaine covers around 858,400 hectares and 74 million trees — roughly 80% of Morocco’s orchard — so the name carries far more weight abroad than at home.
Compared with the other reference cultivars
| Cultivar | Origin | Typical polyphenols | Sensory profile | Best pairing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Picholine | Gard, France | Not published | Very green and fruity, light bitterness and pungency | The olive itself — apéritif; the oil suits salads |
| 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 |
| Aglandau | Provence, France | Not published | Fruity and unctuous, marked bitterness and pungency when young | Aïoli, tapenade, ratatouille, goat cheese |
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.