So often olive oil pressed from the Picual olive is the target of disparaging and sometimes down right rude remarks. “Cat’s pee” is a typical description of the aroma, though I have to say that as I do not keep cats I cannot confirm or deny this allegation. The remarks usually, though not always, come from Italians or from Italian trained tasters.

In my opinion Picual olive oil is a badly maligned product. It is true that some examples do have a certain “cat minty” aroma but after tasting a good many oils pressed from picual olives I would say that most of them do not. Instead they exhibit a whole range of tastes and flavours from nuts and chocolate to tomatoes and green herbs.

Traditionally produced Picual oils from Jaen have tended to be very much in the “nutty” flavour spectrum with bitter almonds, dry hay, dark chocolate and liquorice tones. Others have more green herbaceous tones and lemon but still with the emphasis on bitter herbs and woody tones.

It therefore came as something of a surprise to me to taste oils pressed from Picual olives grown in Australia and New Zealand. Almost without exception they were much more complex – always with tomatoes tones – as well as apples, citrus fruits and culinary herbs. Well balanced bitterness and pepper, as you might expect, are also part of the mix.

Why the very marked differences, I wondered. The obvious answer seemed to be that climates, microclimates, soils and so on are very different in Australia than in Spain. But is that the whole answer?

I have just returned from an extensive visit to Spain, spending a good proportion of my time in the Jaen region and tasting a range of oils pressed from Picual olives which are planted almost everywhere. There were some excellent traditional styles of Picual olive oil but there were also some oils which could have come straight from the New World.

In the Sierra Segura 100% Picual oils from the main organic olive co-operative offered great aromas of really fresh apples with a touch of tomatoes and then much softer though similar flavours with bitter almonds and light pepper. The non-organic oils I tasted were not as interesting with bitter herbs and woody almonds dominating the aroma and palate.

Moving further south to the Sierra Magina region one family producer is experimenting with a much earlier than usual harvest date. This, together with the imaginative manipulation of its continuous centrifugal equipment, is resulting in a range of Picual oils all with wonderful tomato salad bowl aromas and flavours and with styles ranging from medium sweet to relatively strong. These oils really show what Picual is capable of.

In contrast, another producer in the southern Jaen region is producing an organic Picual oil which is both very traditional and of excellent quality. Here the flavours were full of nuts of all kinds with chocolate, hay and liquorice.

Place the oils of these three producers in a blind tasting and you could be forgiven for believing that more than one olive variety was involved! There is a place for all these styles and I would not want to lose the traditional flavours of Jaen Picual, but I would urge more producers to look more carefully at the potential of this interesting variety and give us even more choice.