C 322/8
5.
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
26.8.2022
Link with the geographical area
Specificity of the geographical area The island of Korčula is dominated by craggy, mountainous terrain composed mainly of rock, with little arable land.
The arable land has been cleared of rock and converted into terraces.
The rock removed from the land is then used to build dry-stone walls which enclose the terraces.
The dry-stone walls retain the fertile soil on the terraces; in other words, they prevent it from being washed away by rain.
In that terraced fertile soil, enclosed by dry-stone walls, olive groves made up primarily of trees of the indigenous ‘Lastovka’ and ‘Drobnica’ cultivars are planted.
The main types of arable land can be divided into two groups: terraced regosols and field regosols.
Regosols are most often composed of calcic cambisols and terra rossa.
The island of Korčula has a Mediterranean climate with mild winters and dry, hot summers.
The high average temperatures are the result of high exposure to sunlight.
Mean annual temperatures on the island of Korčula range between 15,6 °C and 16,8 °C.
The hottest month is July, with an average temperature of 25,9 °C, whereas the coldest month is February, with an average temperature of 9,1 °C.
From the point of view of exposure to sunlight, Korčula is very well-suited to olive growing.
July has the most hours of sunlight (373,7 or around 12 hours of sun a day), whereas December has the fewest (125,3 or around 4 hours a day).
In terms of annual precipitation, the climate of the island of Korčula is characteristically humid.
The most precipitation falls in the colder part of the year, from October to March, when the average monthly precipitation ranges from 80 mm to 150 mm.
The least amount of precipitation falls from June to August, ranging on average from 30 mm to 45 mm.
Human factors The population of the island of Korčula has played the main role in forming the island’s landscape.
Olive growers have worked the craggy mountainous terrain, transforming it into terraced arable land and adapting it to the cultivation of olive trees enclosed within dry-stone walls.
The difficulty of accessing the hill terraces precludes the use of large machinery.
Harvesting is done by hand and with mechanical hand tools.
The island of Korčula has changed owners regularly since prehistoric times, so a multitude of historical events have influenced life and the development of cash crops on the island.
An abundance of historical evidence testifies to the cultivation of olives and the production of olive oil on the island of Korčula since the time of colonisation by the Ancient Greeks and under Roman and Venetian rule.
Written sources dating from the time when Korčula came under Venetian rule mention that ‘the Venetian government bought up oil at a very low price, which forced the inhabitants of the island to start smuggling it.’
Although strict penalties were introduced, figures show that oil from Korčula managed to travel even as far as Trieste.’
(S. Dokoza, Iz gospodarske i društvene povijesti Blata do XVIII. st., Zbornik radova, Blato, 2003).
Specificity of the product The specificity of ‘Korčulansko maslinovo ulje’ stems from the assortment of indigenous olive cultivars ‘Lastovka’ and ‘Drobnica’ which make up 80 % of the olives on the island of Korčula.
In his scientific work (Elajografija otoka Korčule (1995)), Pavle Bakarić states that the indigenous olive cultivars ‘Lastovka’ and ‘Drobnica’ differ from other varieties on the island of Korčula (‘Velika Lastovka’, ‘Vrtušćica’, ‘Oblica’) in terms of their morphological, biological and commercial characteristics.
He also states that fresh olives from those two cultivars contain a greater proportion of oil (from 16,40 % to 24 %) than fresh olives of other cultivars.
The specificity of ‘Korčulansko maslinovo ulje’ stems from its aroma (reminiscent of green fruit and olive leaves) and taste (of homogeneous medium to intense bitterness and sharpness) resulting from its high share of total phenols, which account for its sensory properties, i.e. bitterness and sharpness.
This has been proven through research (M. Žanetić, D. Škevin, E. Vitanović, M. Jukić Špika and S. Perica, Ispitivanje fenolnih spojeva i senzorski profil dalmatinskih djevičanskih maslinovih ulja, Pomologia croatica vol. 17, 2011), which found that olive oil of the ‘Lastovka’ and ‘Drobnica’ cultivars contained a higher proportion of total phenols (more than 350 mg/kg) than that from the other