All of the characteristics of the climate and of the soil work together with the variety, to make it possible to obtain a particular olive. To this specificity is added the ancestral know-how of the men, with regard to culture, and the method of preparation.
The black olive of Nyons is picked at complete maturity slightly wrinkled by the first cold weather and the dryness of the air. At this stage of maturity the natural bitterness of the olive has considerably diminished, it can be eliminated by natural and ancestral processes, by immersion in a brine of 10% table salt. Using this method, 6 months minimum are needed for the salt to penetrate into the olive by the effect of osmosis and the bitterness vanishes in the salt water. During this period the coloring agents are partially extracted. The Nyons olive sold to consumers has therefore a dark brown color called ‘bure de moine’ [monk’s frock]. These olives prepared naturally must be kept from the air in a pickle.
We also mention the preparation during the harvesting of the pricked olive, the flesh of the freshly gathered olive is pricked with little holes and the olive is sprinkled with table salt. This penetrates into the olive through its wounds and the olive ‘cries’, it loses water and the bitterness contained in its cells. After a few days the olive is perfectly edible. The life span of this olive is very short and it is sold practically only during the harvest months (December, January, February). It is a product which has an extraordinary taste of weakly salted hazelnut, truly an olive ‘primeur’.
The olive oil of Nyons is the pure fruit juice of the Nyons olive. Harvested by hand at full maturity these black olives are crushed very soon after picking, 2 or 3 days maximum and the characteristics of the olive contribute to the unique taste of the Nyons olive oil and to its analytical typicity, a percentage of oleic acid close to 80% and the level of Delta 5-avenasterols and campesterols is always > 3.
For the taste we would mention as essential parameters an aroma of freshly cut green apple grass with a very pronounced unctuousness in the mouth as well as a perfume of hazelnut or of almond.