THE ALENTEJO OLIVE OIL

Just travelling through the Alentejo would resolve any doubts about the importance of olive cultivation. Olive groves and plantations occupy more than 150,000 hectares and are one of the factors adding beauty to the landscape of the region.

The olive tree (Olea europaea), one of the oldest known cultivated trees in the world, originated from Asia Minor (Turkey) and grew spontaneously in the Mediterranean area. The Greeks and the Romans were keen producers of olive oil and experts in discovering uses for it, not only in food but also as a basic product in traditional medicine, hygiene and beauty treatments.

It was the Romans who brought the culture of olive trees groves to the Iberian Peninsula. However, it was the Arabs, when conquering the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century that perfected the techniques of production and extraction of olive oil and placed the olive tree above all other trees in terms of value.

The word “azeite" (olive oil in Portuguese) has its origin in the Arab vocabulary “az-zait”, which means olive juice, demonstrating yet again the ancestral influence of the Arab people on the cultivation of olives.

Today around 95% of the world’s olive groves are concentrated in the Mediterranean Basin, with Portugal responsible for only 1.5% of the world’s production behind countries like Spain (36.5%), Italy (19.7%), Greece (16.3%), Tunisia (7.7%), Turkey (4.4%), Syria (3.8%) and Morocco (2.5%).