Burhaniye Olive Oil: two thousand years attested by the Adramytteion excavations

In geographical indications the phrase “produced here for centuries” appears often and is rarely evidenced. Burhaniye Olive Oil's certificate rests on excavation finds: work at the ancient city of Adramytteion attests two thousand years of olive growing in the area.

The record

The raw material

The Ayvalık cultivar averages 3.6 g per fruit; the fruit is medium-sized, rounded and close to cylindrical. Oil content runs 18-24%. The cultivar serves both for oil and for table use.

Two harvests, two thresholds

This is where the certificate is distinctive: it gives separate sensory values for early and ripe harvest.

In early-harvest oils fruitiness, bitterness and pungency are high and acidity low. Free acidity across the range runs 0.3-0.8.

The distinction matters: two different product profiles are protected under one registration — the sharp oil of an early harvest and the mellow oil of a ripe one. We discussed the choice in is early harvest expensive or valuable.

One cultivar, four registrations

The Ayvalık cultivar alone underpins four separate geographical indications: Ayvalık Olive Oil (88), North Aegean Olive Oils (392), Burhaniye (518) and Edremit Olive Oil (273). One cultivar registered separately in different localities is the clearest demonstration that a geographical indication attaches to a place, not to a cultivar.

In short

Burhaniye Olive Oil is extra virgin oil produced from the Ayvalık cultivar in Burhaniye and Gömeç. The certificate adds two things: archaeological grounding and sensory thresholds that split by harvest timing.

Source: Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Geographical Indication Registration Certificate No 518 — Burhaniye Zeytinyağı.