Simona

The plant of the Simona variety is certainly less beautiful and less rich in foliage than others in the area: it could be judged to the untrained eye as a stressed plant, with a poorly pot-bellied trunk and thin branches, a light green color of the ovalized leaves and smaller than usual. Another characterizing element is that of slow growth, in fact the circumference of the latter reaches half the size of that of the plants of the cultivar being compared.
However, until 1960 an olive tree characterized in this way, with a low oil yield of its fruit, covered almost a third of the total plants present in the territory of the Murgia dei Trulli and the Caves, in particular in the municipalities of Castellana, Conversano, Putignano and Alberobello, Polignano and Monopoli. Particular in terms of oil “yield” of the “Simona” olive tree is provided by the following average data: from 100 kg of “Simona” olives, an average of 12 kg of oil is extracted, with a significantly lower value of about 20%. compared to the average yield of other cultivars. The reason for the high diffusion, at the time, of the cultivar is to be found in the sensory qualities of the oil, destined as it was for the richest markets. With regard to the sensory characteristics, it can be said that the slightly spicy tone is associated with the ability of the oil produced by “Simona” to be able to acquire the judgment of “lean” for the sweet connotation that differentiates it from the products of higher impact, and to show stability of characters for more than a year.