🫒 Oblica

Oblica is Croatia's most important olive cultivar. It grows throughout the country's olive zone and accounts for at least 60 % of orchard trees; it is also the most propagated cultivar in nurseries. According to data from the Croatian Ministry of Agriculture in a review by the International Olive Council (IOC), most Croatian olive oil is made from Oblica. The cultivar has many synonyms, including Bračka, Debela, Pitoma and Velika.

Between 2005 and 2012, Croatia's olive area grew from 12,357 to 19,000 hectares. Oblica is well adapted to poor soils, roots easily and tolerates drought, but cannot stand spring cold.

The tree is of medium vigour with a spreading, open crown; the fruit is large, black when ripe, and the stone separates easily. Oblica used to be planted without pollinators, but in new orchards with Levantinka or Drobnica it sets much more fruit. Yields are medium and alternate, and the fruit ripens early. The cultivar is susceptible to the olive fruit fly but fairly resistant to olive knot.

Oblica is versatile: it is used for green and black table olives and for oil with a medium oil content, which the IOC calls highly prized. On the island of Šolta, Oblica together with Levantinka produces Šoltansko maslinovo ulje, protected in the EU since 2016: it contains at least 50 % Levantinka, and the two cultivars together make up 95 %. Local growers even graft Levantinka branches onto Oblica.

Why it matters to you. If a Croatian olive oil does not name a cultivar, it is most likely based on Oblica. According to the single document for Korčula oil, oil from Oblica and Levantinka contains about 161 mg/kg of phenols, half as much as Lastovka, so it is milder.