The Real Olive Company, a Bristol-based specialty food wholesaler and retailer, does sell peppers, cheeses and vinegars. But, as its name implies, olives are the stars of the show. Partners Ben Slight and Karen Anderson take a personal interest in these drupes, traveling several times a year to visit their suppliers in Greece. These are mostly family-run concerns that use traditional methods of farming.

"We do source olives from other countries", says company spokesman Doug Storey, "but the bulk of our olives comes from Greece. The quality and the range there is just superb."

One reason for this high-quality may have been explained by the ancient agriculturalists, most notably Theophrastus. Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor and the man credited with sending the first message in a bottle, believed that the olive tree would not thrive unless planted in close proximity to the sea. And if there is one thing Greece has, it is coastline. Of course, the abundance of warm sun, good soil and the lack of rain are also contributing factors.

Too Many Names
As to variety, there is indeed a wide assortment. The differences have to do with where the tree grows, when the olives are picked and how they are processed as well as with the cultivars from which they come. Conservolea and Kalamata are commonly grown cultivars for table olives. Some cultivars, like Megaritiki, Kothreiki and Thrubolea, are used for both table olives and olive oil. These fruit of these cultivars tends to be smaller.

To make matters confusing, fruit coming from a cultivar from one region can look and taste completely different than fruit coming from the same cultivar in a different region. Sometimes a "type" of olive may be named for its place of origin, sometimes for the kind of cure it has undergone and sometimes by the name of the cultivar. Never mind. Each region in Greece has a distinct name for each olive it produces which, because they really are all different, is warranted.

Picky Picking
Olives are harvested in the fall. Green olives are picked at the end of September to the middle of November. Blond olives are picked from the middle of October to the end of November and Black olives are collected from the middle of November to the end of January or early February.

Greece’s terrain is mountainous.
Many olive groves are located on mountain steps. This makes harvesting by machine well-nigh impossible. For connoisseurs, this is good news: almost all Greek olives are harvested by hand. This method causes the least amount of bruising to the fruit, resulting in a superior finished product.