With an altogether different flavour profile from Offida, Alcamo made from Cerasuola olives with a blend of Nocellara and Biancolilla olives, is a robust herbaceous oil with the taste of just-cut grass, artichokes, and tomatoes.
Cerasuola olives are large and fleshy and turn, as they ripen, from a vivid green to a deep purple and then black when fully ripe.
When tested, Alcamo showed an incredibly high level of polyphenols, the healthy compound in Extra Virgin Olive Oil which not only gives the peppery after kick but is nature's natural defence to neutralize free radicals that cause damage to your body's cells.
Unusually for an olive tree, the branches and foliage of the Cerasuola olive tree reach upwards towards the sky rather than drooping downwards like most olive cultivars. The trees also thrive even in the poorest of soils and grow quite happily in the most unpromising of circumstances.
Famed for their resistance to drought and fluctuating climatic conditions, the Cerasuola olive is widespread across Sicily, a landscape which is without rainfall for increasingly long stretches of the year, and ranges from baking hot summers to the some of the lowest temperatures recorded in Italy in the winter months.