5 good reasons to choose a French olive oil 🇫🇷!

Did you know that 96% of olive oils consumed in France are produced abroad!

A surprising figure, when we know that France is the 3rd largest consumer country in Europe (average of 2L/person/year) and that some of the best olive oils in the world are produced there.

Spain, the world's leading producer (and consumer!) of olive oil, is also the leading exporter of olive oil to France, with 68.7% of the market, followed by Italy with 18.4% of exports to France. This means that these two countries cover more than 85% of French olive oil consumption.

It is therefore imperative that French consumers defend French olive oils. For this reason, we have very good reasons to give you to have (at the very least!) a bottle of French olive oil in your kitchen!

It may sound silly, but when you buy French olive oil, you are guaranteed that the oil extraction was done in a French oil mill using French olives!

You therefore have a double guarantee which can be summed up as follows: Olive oil from France = 100% French olives + extraction in a 100% French oil mill.

You are thus helping French olive growers and the entire industry.

2 - The richness of French terroirs

Olive oil and olives from France are true local products.

Distributed mainly in the South-East and Corsica, the olive-growing estates have unique characteristics, not only thanks to the varieties of olives used to make olive oil, but also thanks to the climate, geology, and the know-how used to produce the olives intended for oil.

These particularities linked to the land (climate, geology, etc.) and to man (know-how) constitute the French notion of "terroir".

All these factors have an effect on the olive oils produced, the terroir influences the flavor of the fruit (the olive is a fruit!).

This is why different olive oils have different flavors and aromas, depending on where they are produced. Just like wine, you can buy different olive oils from different regions and get different flavor profiles. (All the more reason not to have just one French olive oil at home!).

In France, this translates into protected designations of origin (PDO) which delimit a geographical area, the one where the product was produced. This designation is proof of the taste quality of the olive oil, the fruit of local varieties used in a specific geographical area. There are eight (8) PDOs today:

• Nyons olive oil,
• olive oil from the Baux-de-Provence Valley,
• olive oil from Aix-en-Provence,
• olive oil from Haute-Provence,
• olive oil from Nice,
• olive oil from Nîmes,
• Corsican olive oil - Oliu di Corsica,
• olive oil from Provence

For olive oil to be recognized as PDO, the olive grower must respect the specifications defined by the PDO of his appellation region.

Apart from these eight appellations, olive oils produced in France benefit from the appellation "huile de France"; these are generally olive oils whose origin is not located in the geographical areas of the PDOs, or produced using non-traditional agricultural techniques, and/or finally oils from olive tree varieties that are not of French origin, such as the Spanish varieties Arbequina and Picual.

3 - Taste, a story of know-how between the olive grower and the miller

Olive oils from France are grouped into three main "families" of taste.

Each of them has very different taste characteristics which are obtained thanks to the combined know-how of French olive growers and millers:

- Ripe fruity or "ripe fruity" - Made from ripe olives, the olive oils in this family are extracted from fresh olives. They are generally sweet with aromas of fruit (dried, ripe), flowers, and accompanied by vegetal notes.

-Green Fruity - extracted from fresh olives, harvested a few days before their full maturity when the color of the olive changes from green to mauve. They can have a light to medium bitterness and pungency. The taste notes are vegetal and herbaceous.

-Old-Fashioned Olive Oil - Old-fashioned olive oils do not have a fresh fruit character or a vegetal aroma. They come from olives stored and matured, under controlled conditions, for 4 to 8 days before extraction. They deliver notes of cocoa, mushroom, vanilla, and candied fruit.

4 - A varietal richness to preserve

There are around a hundred varieties of olive trees in France, each corresponding to a different growing area; these varieties have their own taste and flavors. So, to ensure that in the future we do not only find these varieties in conservatories, it is necessary to maintain their exploitation in the French olive industry.

At Domaine Clos des Faucons, our oils are produced with four French varieties that we blend directly at the mill:

Aglandau : This is one of the most widely used varieties for production in France. It is renowned for its green fruitiness, smoothness, bitterness and pungency, its taste of artichoke and green grass.

Cayon : This variety produces a sweet, fruity oil dominated by a taste of tomato and sometimes pear.

Picholine : very present in the south of France, this variety is appreciated for its typical peppery flavors with aromas of spicy raw artichoke and full-bodied hazelnut.

Bouteillan : A very hardy variety, appreciated for its aromas of apple and pepper with herbal notes.

5 - Preserve our traditional orchards and landscapes

The race for yield (and low prices) is gradually transforming the orchards of producing countries, olive trees are now genetically modified and planted intensively in rows (1100 trees per hectare!) for a mechanized olive harvest with grape harvesters, a profitable industrial principle but very far from a landscape objective, respectful of the environment and sustainability (olive trees are in fact obligatorily uprooted every 20 years...).

In France, the majority of olive orchards have been planted in the traditional way (280 olive trees per hectare), an ancestral planting technique that contributes to the beauty of our landscapes in the south of France but which involves laborious maintenance and manual harvesting... and therefore necessarily much higher operating costs. It is therefore difficult for French olive growers and olive makers to compete with the prices of their foreign industrial competitors.

To prevent our century-old orchards from disappearing and to ensure that the methods of growing olive trees in France remain traditional for as long as possible, it is necessary to continue to support our French olive growers.

At Domaine Clos des Faucons, all of the orchards are planted in the traditional manner and our entire production process is manual.