World Olive Oil Competition Results: Live Updates

May 25 11:36 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Frantoio, the cul­ti­var that has secured Uruguayan pro­ducer Olivas de Paso a Silver Award at this year’s World Olive Oil Competition, was orig­i­nally brought to the South American coun­try from Europe.

Oliviculture was intro­duced to Uruguay in 1780 by the Spanish set­tlers but extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­tion in the Mercosur coun­try is rel­a­tively new, start­ing with vir­gin olive oil first being pro­duced in the 1930s. Around the turn of the cen­tury new groves with cer­ti­fied mate­r­ial — pathogen-free and ver­i­ta­ble — were intro­duced from Europe, of which Frantoio was one of the six main cul­ti­vars.

Being one of the top six most-entered cul­ti­vars in this year’s NYIOOC, Frantoio extra vir­gin olive oils are fruity with bit­ter and spicy notes, and rem­i­nis­cent of fresh herbs and almonds on the nose.

May 25 11:34 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

South African pro­ducer Lion’s Creek Olive Estate that has walked away with two awards — a Gold and a Silver — at the 2022 NYIOOC is sit­u­ated in South Africa’s Karoo, a desert region with sum­mer rains and cold, dry win­ters.

Although South Africa has six clearly-defined and diverse cli­matic zones, rang­ing from areas syn­ony­mous with snow-capped moun­tains to warm sub­trop­i­cal areas, olive trees are grown through­out the coun­try. The epi­cen­ter of the sub-saha­ran olive indus­try is con­cen­trated in the coun­try’s Western Cape province with its Mediterranean cli­mate, the most favor­able for olive grow­ing.

The highly-adapt­able Mission cul­ti­var, which was used in one of Lion Creek’s award-win­ning oils, was intro­duced to South Africa from California and is the most widely-grown olive tree in the coun­try due to its ver­sa­til­ity.

May 23 17:48 UTC

Nedjeljko Jusup report­ing from Zadar

“We are third in the world [in terms of total awards],” Tomislav Duvnjak, owner of Vodice DOO in Dalmatia, who won two Silver Awards at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, told a net­work of local olive grow­ers. ​“I hope we will endure to the end, and that this is the largest suc­cess so far.”

Duvnjak earned two Silver Awards and is among the Croatian pro­duc­ers who com­bined for a record-high 93 awards (67 Gold and 26 Silver) with one more day of results to go. Only Spanish and Italian pro­duc­ers have won more this year, with 140 and 111, respec­tively.

Along with a record num­ber of awards, Croatian pro­duc­ers have achieved the high­est suc­cess rate of any coun­try that earned more than three awards at the com­pe­ti­tion, with 83 per­cent. Japan and New Zealand are the next high­est, with 75 per­cent each.

“Awards are recog­ni­tion of the great effort and work,” said Domagoja Živković, who earned a Gold Award at the com­pe­ti­tion. ​“But also an oblig­a­tion to con­tinue to improve because it is hard to stay on top.”

Ivica Vlatković, the pres­i­dent of the Zadar County Olive Growers Association, who also earned two Silver Awards at the 2022 NYIOOC, added that the role tra­di­tion has played in the suc­cess of Croatia’s grow­ers and pro­duc­ers can­not be under­es­ti­mated.

“The labor and work of Croatian olive grow­ers, our grand­fa­thers, was not in vain,” he con­cluded. ​“Many of us built on their foun­da­tions, planted new olives and achieved suc­cess.”

May 21 13:21 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

With still a few days left to go in the announce­ments of this year’s award-win­ning brands, pro­duc­ers from Croatia have already claimed 91 awards, break­ing their pre­vi­ous record of 87 in 2021. In 2015, there were just 9 entries from the coun­try, which has since become one of the strongest in terms of the num­ber of sub­mit­ted brands and the rate of suc­cess.

The dra­matic increase of par­tic­i­pat­ing brands from Turkey has yielded a record-set­ting 58 awards as results con­tinue to come in, strength­en­ing the coun­try’s renown as a source of world-class olive oils.

Meanwhile, pro­duc­ers from the United States have so far gar­nered 81 of the indus­try’s most cov­eted awards, break­ing the 2018 record of 75.

May 20 13:26 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

As the end of the 2022 NYIOOC roll­out approaches, pro­duc­ers from 25 coun­tries on six con­ti­nents have made it on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils. The tri­umphant pro­duc­ers revealed so far used at least 120 dif­fer­ent olive vari­eties in their award-win­ning mono­va­ri­etals and blends.

Those cul­ti­vars are expres­sion of their local ter­ri­toirs and tra­di­tions, such as Oblica, grown in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Edremit, which sig­ni­fies the his­toric tra­di­tion of olive oil excel­lence in Turkey.

Other cul­ti­vars have dis­tin­guished them­selves in sev­eral coun­tries and lat­i­tudes thanks to their abil­i­ties to adapt to dif­fer­ent cli­mate con­di­tions.

The Frantoio vari­ety is grown by NYIOOC win­ners in nine dif­fer­ent coun­tries. The Tuscan vari­ety is reward­ing olive grow­ers not only in Spain and Croatia, but also in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Africa and Uruguay. Frantoio trees are renowned for their strength and vital­ity and higher than aver­age fruit yields result­ing in oils of unique aro­matic qual­i­ties.

A grow­ing num­ber of win­ners have also scored with the Picholine vari­ety, which comes from south­ern France and has expanded so impres­sively that is is used by NYIOOC win­ners in eight coun­tries includ­ing Australia, United States, Morocco and Israel. One of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of this vari­ety is its ten­dency to deliver higher than aver­age polyphe­nols, which enhance an extra vir­gin olive oil’s healthy pro­file.

The Koroneiki cul­ti­var is found in award-win­ning brands in seven coun­tries inl­cud­ing the United States, Brazil and New Zealand. An ancient cul­ti­var which is widely grown in its home coun­try, Greece, Koroneiki is a pop­u­lar choice for high-denisty farms, deliv­er­ing pre­mium oils in many con­texts.

May 19 10:54 UTC

Costas Vasilopoulos report­ing from Athens

Transforming olives of the Kalamata vari­ety to olive oil is not com­mon in the olive oil indus­try, since they are mostly reserved as table olives to com­ple­ment a Greek sal­ads and other Mediterranean dishes.

However, the cul­ti­var has yielded a suc­cess­ful result for a Greek pro­ducer who entered the com­pe­ti­tion with their Kalamata mono­va­ri­etal.

Kouros of Zeus from Laconia in south­east Peloponnese earned a Gold Award for its name­sake brand made exclu­sively from the Kalamata vari­ety.

“I am very happy to have won a Gold Award from such an impor­tant com­pe­ti­tion,” owner Efthymios Christakos said. ​“We pro­duced an inno­v­a­tive extra vir­gin olive oil from Kalamata-Kalamon olives with love and devo­tion and feel rewarded with the results.”

Atsas Organic Products from Nicosia, on the other hand, which cul­ti­vates its 7,000 olive trees in its organic farm near the vil­lage of Evrychou (Solea val­ley) in Cyprus, won a Silver Award for its Atsas Silver Edition blend from olives of the Kalamon and the Koroneiki vari­eties.

May 18 12;33 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

Less than a week from the con­clu­sion of the tenth edi­tion of the NYIOOC, one may note that almost half of the win­ning brands in the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils are blends.

While mono­va­ri­etals (also called monocul­ti­vars) are sin­gle-vari­ety prod­ucts, blends com­bine two or more olive vari­eties to craft com­plex organolep­tic pro­files.

This type of pro­duc­tion can result in out­stand­ing extra vir­gin olive oils, such as the intense fusion of Bosana, Tonda di Cagliari and Semidana labeled Accademia Olearia; the har­monic union of Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo, Pendolino and Dolce Agogia made at Fontanaro Estate; and the rich mix – Biancolilla Centinara, Nocellara del Belice, Cerasuola, Passalunara, Minuta, Moresca, Giarraffa, Nocellara Etnea, Piricuddara and Tonda Iblea – that forms the Heritage Blend of Bona Furtuna farm.

“When it comes to blends, we can say that the union make the force,” Irene Carpinelli, taster and founder of e‑olio, told Olive Oil Times. ​“If they are well assem­bled, the speci­fici­ties of the dif­fer­ent vari­eties involved are enhanced and exalted. An intense, lively, fruity oil can be, for exam­ple, blended with smoother, fresher ones result­ing in a bal­anced com­bi­na­tion that empha­sizes cer­tain scents and fla­vors. Yet, we can def­i­nitely say that the com­bi­na­tions are end­less.”

A blend can be obtained in two dif­fer­ent ways: A ​“field blend” is made by pro­cess­ing the fruits of dif­fer­ent vari­eties together, or millers can crush each vari­ety indi­vid­u­ally and blend the oils later. ​“The lat­ter allows one to bet­ter com­bine vari­eties with dif­fer­ent ripen­ing times,” Carpinelli noted.

“While mono­va­ri­etals can be an expres­sion of a ter­ri­tory and a pro­duc­tion method, I would define blends as ​‘sig­na­ture’ prod­ucts,” she said. ​“They are sen­so­r­ial cre­ations that result from the taste, expe­ri­ence, and sen­si­tiv­ity of the farmer who should also take into account the trends and goals of the sea­sons. I see them as an expres­sion of the craft­man­ship of pro­duc­ers and blenders.”

May 18 12:14 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Barsko Zlato is the first brand from Montenegro to make it to the 2022 edi­tion of the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils with its Silver Award.

Montenegro is a small coun­try with ancient tra­di­tions whose coasts brace the south­ern Adriatic Sea. There, on those gen­tle slopes, it is believed that the first olive orchards were planted by the Romans more than two thou­sand years ago. Generations of farm­ers have been build­ing a tra­di­tion which has expanded to reli­gious rit­u­als and to cos­met­ics.

As the local pro­duc­ers asso­ci­a­tion noted, the cru­cial role of Montenegro olive oil in its cul­ture can be found in the local cui­sine. The olive is so highly regarded that a local leg­end says every groom must plant an olive tree before being allowed to marry.

Barsko Zlato comes from the Žutica cul­ti­var, a gen­er­ous indige­nous olive tree vari­ety which fea­tures in most local orchards. The color of the olive oil pro­duced by Žutica usu­ally tends toward yel­low more than green, which is why locals call it ​“yel­low yield.”

May 16 20:00 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

As results con­tinue to roll out, 524 awards have so far been bestowed to brands from 24 coun­tries. NYIOOC orga­niz­ers said the unveil­ing will likely be com­pleted on or before Tuesday, May 24.

May 12 13:35 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Some farm­ers grow more than one crop. Known as poly­cul­ture, this prac­tice serves an attempt to repli­cate nat­ural ecosys­tems.

Due to their sim­i­lar cli­matic require­ments, grow­ing olives and grapes is a tra­di­tional poly­cul­tural farm­ing prac­tice tapped by pro­duc­ers such as SCEA Leos who won a Gold Award for a Provence AOP extra vir­gin olive oil at this year’s World Olive Oil Competition.

Olive trees shield grape vines from strong winds that can hin­der pol­li­na­tion and have been cred­ited for pro­tect­ing the vine­yards in the Italian region of Umbria from phyl­lox­era, an insect pest that tar­gets grapes.

May 12 13:25 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Twenty years ago Brazil had no olive oil pro­duc­ers. Since then, its fledg­ling indus­try has expanded to yield 230,000 liters in 2019 and started to export its oils two years ago.

Around three-quar­ters of the South American producer’s har­vested olives are the Arbequina cul­ti­var, and Brazilian olive oils are typ­i­cally herba­ceous, with some dis­play­ing guava fla­vors.

Brazil’s south­ern­most state of Rio Grande do Sul, home to pro­ducer Olivas da Lua that took home two Gold Awards for their medium-inten­sity Koroneiki extra vir­gin olive oils at the 2022 NYIOOC, is the the largest olive-grow­ing region that yielded 60 per­cent of the coun­try’s olive oil in 2019.

May 12 13:22 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

One more Gold Award went to A1980, an organic extra vir­gin olive oil from the beau­ti­ful land­scape sur­round­ing Bolsena Lake in the upper Lazio region in cen­tral Italy. It is a highly fer­tile land where olive groves are eas­ily spot­ted on the banks of the lake and in the sur­round­ing areas.

The Alessandra Nicolai Farm grows its Frantoio, Moraiolo, Leccino and Pendolino olives in Montefiascone, a renowned ancient vil­lage tow­er­ing over the lake and dom­i­nated by the Rocca dei Papi, the ​“Popes’ Castle,” an impres­sive build­ing built by the Pope Innocenzo III in the 12^th cen­tury CE.

The gen­tle slopes sur­round­ing the Castle — kissed by the west­ern breeze and by the unique local cli­mate trig­gered by the enchant­ing lake cher­ished by thou­sands of tourists — have been cared for by gen­er­a­tions of wine and olive grow­ers. Most of the Montefiascone area is of vol­canic ori­gin, a bless­ing for wine, olive and fruit grow­ers.

“After the award last year we never expected another con­fir­ma­tion at the pres­ti­gious NYIOOC,” Alessandra Nicolai told Ontuscia, the local news­pa­per. ​“I have shed joy­ful tears for the news. All my fam­ily has been involved, such as my mother which after last year win encour­aged us to not stop our quest for qual­ity, and today we share with her those pos­i­tive results.”

May 11 17:53 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

In the 2014 NYIOOC, about one-third of sub­mit­ted entries were awarded. This year, at least two-thirds of the par­tic­i­pat­ing pro­duc­ers are expected to take home the indus­try’s most cov­eted prizes if the recent trends hold.

“Year after year there has been a steady climb in the suc­cess rate — not because our judges have got­ten soft, but due to the sheer deter­mi­na­tion by pro­duc­ers around the world to answer the call and improve their meth­ods,” wrote NYIOOC pres­i­dent Curtis Cord in a recent blog post.

Producers in every region are more edu­cated on what it takes to pro­duce high-qual­ity olive oils than they were in 2014, when most oils were late-har­vest and unfil­tered. Technical and edu­ca­tional ini­tia­tives by coop­er­a­tives, PDOs and national agri­cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions have con­tributed to a dra­matic rise in qual­ity over the period.

“Our judges went from rejoic­ing at the rare sam­ple that pleased them ten years ago to now being delighted most of the time. How for­tu­nate for us all to have so many excel­lent oils to choose from – an unthink­able con­cept just a decade ago,” Cord noted.

The 1,267 oils entered in this tenth NYIOOC rep­re­sent an elite sub­set of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil brands from 28 coun­tries. By now, ten years in, most of the par­tic­i­pat­ing pro­duc­ers under­stand what the tast­ing panel, and the mar­ket­place, are look­ing for.

May 9 16:20 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

Itrana is the olive vari­ety behind the suc­cess of Carroccia Campodimele, Brezza Tirrena, and Agresti 1902, each bestowed a Gold Award at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

The three award-win­ning farms in the province of Latina, in south­ern Lazio, pro­duce out­stand­ing mono­va­ri­etals dis­tin­guished by a scent of tomato, per­ceiv­able to the nose and mouth, com­ple­mented by notes of cut grass, aro­matic herbs, and a slight hint of almond.

“In my opin­ion, Itrana extra vir­gin olive oils stand out because of their har­mony,” Gisa Di Nicola, taster and founder of Oliocentrica, told Olive Oil Times. ​“They can be very ele­gant, with fruiti­ness, bit­ter­ness, and spici­ness always well bal­anced. Their aroma of tomato leaf intrigues you and reminds you of the bruschetta rubbed with tomato that your grand­mother pre­pared for you when you were a kid, and you can even imag­ine a sprig of basil on the slice of bread, and, around you, grassy slopes in the breeze. We can say that their scents evoke a whole atmos­phere. Since usu­ally Itrana is not too bit­ter or pun­gent, I use it in tast­ings to intro­duce the less expe­ri­enced con­sumers to the world of high qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oils.”

As soil and cli­mate con­di­tions affect the organolep­tic fea­tures of olive oils, there can be sen­so­r­ial vari­a­tions depend­ing on where the orchards are. ​“In the inner lands of Sonnino and Itri, the trees located on steep ter­rain can give slightly more intense olive oils,” Di Nicola pointed out. ​“This trait is mit­i­gated in the oils made from plants that face the sea, like those near Gaeta. Indeed, we find many orchards lying on ter­raced hills sup­ported by dry stone walls close to the sea­side. At a nutraceu­ti­cal level, I noticed that, if the right pro­duc­tion mea­sures are applied, the most hid­den and ele­vated groves can give prod­ucts with very high lev­els of polyphe­nols,” she observed.

Let us not for­get that, thanks to its dou­ble apti­tude, the fruit of Itrana can become a deli­cious table olive after a brin­ing process.

May 6 12:50 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

The olive trees that yielded the award-win­ning Leccino extra vir­gin olive oil that earned Australian pro­ducer Cape Schanck Olive Estate one of their three Gold Awards at this year’s World Olive Oil Competition is a self-ster­ile cul­ti­var that needs other trees to grow along­side it to bear fruit, whereas some are self-fer­tile and don’t need other olive trees for pol­li­na­tion.

In addi­tion to being self-ster­ile, Leccino trees like all olive cul­ti­vars are self-incom­pat­i­ble, which means they need to be pol­li­nated by a tree from another cul­ti­var to pre­vent inbreed­ing.

Even though this at times requires the added effort of grow­ing another olive cul­ti­var in the same grove, self-fer­tile trees pro­duce a larger yield than self-pol­li­nat­ing trees and are more resilient to adverse cli­matic con­di­tions.

Although self-incom­pat­i­ble and self-ster­ile, olive trees like Leccino can be excel­lent pol­li­na­tor trees for other cul­ti­vars.

May 4 12:58 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Jordanian pro­duc­ers have ongo­ing chal­lenges with hot and dry weather yet it is iron­i­cally these cli­matic con­di­tions that lend the Levantine king­dom’s extra vir­gin olive oils their unique organolep­tic qual­i­ties.

Producers like Jordan’s Al-Maida Agricultural, who have won a Gold and two Silvers for their extra vir­gin olive oil at this year’s World Olive Oil Competition, face hot­ter tem­per­a­tures ahead due to cli­mate change.

The United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can’t pre­dict with cer­tainty the out­look for Jordanian farm­ers, but dur­ing the rainy sea­son the coun­try’s olive trees lessen soil ero­sion that leads to deser­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“This is our sec­ond year of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the New York Olive Oil Competition,” Ziad Bilbeisi, owner of Al-Maida told Olive Oil Times. ​“Last year’s award gave us many oppor­tu­ni­ties, such as an invi­ta­tion to sup­ply our EVOO for the Best Chef Awards cer­e­mony in Amsterdam. This year’s awards will fur­ther pro­mote our olive oil to new mar­kets allow­ing a wider expo­sure and enjoy­ment of these Jordanian vari­eties of Arbequina and Arbosana.”

May 3 22:32 UTC

Costas Vasilopoulos report­ing from Athens

The Vatopedi monastery of Mount Athos has earned no less than four Gold Awards at the tenth edi­tion of the World Olive Oil Competition.

The monastery’s organic olive oil Eleonas Vatopediou Bio won Gold Awards for each of its three ver­sions: the organic Koroneiki, early-har­vest Koroneiki and a blend. Another Gold was earned for the Eleonas Monastic Koroneiki.

Mount Athos, the autonomous polity sit­u­ated on the Athos promon­tory in north­ern Greece, boasts twenty monas­ter­ies and it has been the spir­i­tual and monas­tic cen­ter of the Eastern Orthodox Church since its estab­lish­ment in the late 8^th cen­tury.

The Athonite com­mu­nity is a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for peo­ple from around the world, what­ever their reli­gious beliefs, who are look­ing to expe­ri­ence a world from another era. Visitors of the com­mu­nity also have the chance to taste Mediterranean cui­sine in its purest form.

The monks of Mount Athos are skilled wine and olive oil mak­ers and they are renowned across Greece for their sim­ple and taste­ful recipes.

Their dishes are chiefly based on Mediterranean sta­ples such as legumes, veg­eta­bles and seafood, since meat in all its forms is excluded. They use herbs such as fen­nel, pars­ley, all­spice, cin­na­mon and cumin for added fla­vor.

The monas­ter­ies main­tain their own vine­yards and olive oil orchards, while exten­sive gar­dens where organic veg­eta­bles, fruits and legumes of high qual­ity are cul­ti­vated stretch away on the moun­tain­ous land.

May 3 11:16 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Bianchera olives pro­duce intense olive oils, but Slovenian pro­ducer Timor blended the native ​“Istrian Bjelica” with other cul­ti­vars to cre­ate the del­i­cate organic blend that earned them a Gold Award at the 2022 NYIOOC.

Producers blend oils for var­i­ous rea­sons, for exam­ple to ensure con­sis­tency in fla­vor as the taste from a par­tic­u­lar grove’s cul­ti­var can vary annu­ally due to cli­mate and other fac­tors.

Blends are either cre­ated by com­bin­ing oils from dif­fer­ent groves and estates, or by grow­ing dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars in the same groves and treat­ing them as a sin­gle entity. Known as a field blend, these olives are then har­vested, milled and bot­tled simul­ta­ne­ously.

May 2, 17:35 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Two Gold Awards have been achieved at the 2022 NYIOOC by KeremZait, a high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pro­ducer whose olive trees dot the banks of the Jordan River in the Hula Valley, a unique envi­ron­ment in north­ern Israel where over time human set­tle­ments and farm­ing activ­i­ties have strug­gled to fine-tune their rela­tion­ship with a rich yet frag­ile envi­ron­ment within the Hula National Reserve. It is the coun­try’s first nat­ural park — lush wet­lands where migra­tory birds, rare water plants and marsh ani­mals thrive.

KeremZait has been invest­ing in state-of-the-art machin­ery and agri­cul­tural best prac­tices, built on a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of olive farm­ing. Olive trees in the area have an ancient his­tory and local olive grow­ing dates back for mil­len­nia.

Researchers believe that olive, pis­ta­chio and oak were the most preva­lent species of trees in the area more than 15,000 years ago, when tem­per­a­tures began to rise as the last Ice Age started to fade. Since then, olive trees became a safe source of fuel and food for local pop­u­la­tions.

“It is a great honor to be named among the biggest names in the olive oil indus­try. Our unique end-to-end process — from grow­ing through press­ing to dis­tri­b­u­tion — that we have devel­oped in our Israeli farm over the last ten years, enables us to deliver these gold win­ning qual­ity prod­ucts to our valu­able con­sumers and bring a top level prod­uct to the local mar­ket,” Nimrod Azulay, KeremZait co-owner, told Olive Oil Times.

Apr. 29 14:14 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

More than 370 award win­ners will have been announced before the first day of May — long before any results were reported in pre­vi­ous edi­tions. Producers in every region are trum­pet­ing their achieve­ments in social media chan­nels and appear­ing in news out­lets around the world at an ear­lier point in their cam­paigns than before.

Most Northern Hemisphere oils were ana­lyzed weeks ear­lier than they used to be, and Southern Hemisphere brands are join­ing the queue fresh from the mills.

The Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils is being viewed more than 20,000 times per day, with inter­est increas­ing as the results con­tinue to unfold.

Apr. 29 11:55 UTC

Costas Vassilopoulos report­ing from Athens

After 18 days into the tenth edi­tion of the World Olive Oil Competition, 357 awards (255 Gold and 102 Silver) have been bestowed to pro­duc­ers from 21 coun­tries around the world, as the results con­tinue to unfold.

Monovarietals (oils made from a sin­gle olive cul­ti­var) have earned 217 awards so far, com­pared to 140 won by brands made with two or more vari­eties, or blends.

In terms of the par­tic­u­lar vari­eties, most wins have been claimed by oils made from the Picual and Koroneiki vari­eties — 28 and 27 respec­tively.

The con­test orga­niz­ers noted ear­lier that Koronieki is the pre­dom­i­nant vari­ety in the 2022 NYIOOC (among both mono­va­ri­etals and blends) among 151 dis­tinct olive types rep­re­sented in the com­pe­ti­tion this year.

Apr. 28 12:14 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

The pro­ducer Agresti 1902 cel­e­brates its entry into the world of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil with a Gold Award for 501 Altitudo. ​“We are delighted about this recog­ni­tion that marks our first par­tic­i­pa­tion in the NYIOOC,” Francesco Agresti told Olive Oil Times after he found out that his Itrana mono­va­ri­etal had landed on the Official Guide.

A few years ago, he took up his grand­par­ents’ olive oil-mak­ing tra­di­tion with the aim of cre­at­ing a pre­mium extra vir­gin olive oil from 1,200 cen­turies-old olive trees on the steep ter­raced hills between Sonnino and Itri, in south­ern Lazio. ​“We have been exper­i­ment­ing for five years before real­iz­ing a small pilot pro­duc­tion last sea­son,” he revealed. ​“Finally, this year we have launched the defin­i­tive prod­uct, and it is already giv­ing us great sat­is­fac­tion.”

Apr. 28 12:07 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Among the Gold and Silver Award win­ners announced so far, almost one in three is an organ­i­cally-pro­duced extra vir­gin olive oil.

Such pre­lim­i­nary data show the strong com­mit­ment of many high-end pro­duc­ers as the healthy pro­file of extra vir­gin olive oil is a rel­e­vant dri­ver in inter­na­tional mar­kets.

The lat­est fig­ures from the World of Organic Agriculture show that at the end of 2020 organic food global mar­ket value exceeded €120 bil­lion, an increase of €14 bil­lion over the pre­vi­ous year and the strongest increase ever recorded. The United States, which is the major global importer of extra vir­gin olive oil, is also the lead­ing mar­ket when it comes to organic food.

Apr. 28 11:58 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Producer Asur that has won a Gold Award for their medium-inten­sity extra vir­gin olive oil at the tenth edi­tion of the World Olive Oil Competition makes their award-win­ning oil to sell in Belgium.

Earlier this year the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from devel­op­ing coun­tries (CBI) in the Netherlands reported that in 2020 Belgium imported more than 22,000 tons of olive oil to the value of €74.5 mil­lion, and that 59 per­cent of its olive oil imports were of extra vir­gin olive oil.

The CBI reported that of all grades of olive oil, extra vir­gin olive oil was the fastest grow­ing type of olive oil imported to Belgium with an increase of 5,500 tons from 2017 to 13,300 tons in 2020.

Belgium report­edly imported 48 per­cent of their olive oil from Spain, and from other coun­tries their imports from Greece were the fastest grow­ing.

Apr. 26 17:29 UTC

Nedjeljko Jusup report­ing from Zadar

It is no coin­ci­dence that the extra vir­gin olive oil Vergal Frantoio by the Istrian tourist com­pany Aminess from Novigrad was awarded a Gold Award for the fourth time at the pres­ti­gious NYIOOC, which is per­haps around mid­way in the process of reveal­ing its results.

“We are extremely proud of our Vergal. For the fourth time, we have been awarded in an extremely strong com­pe­ti­tion of the best oils in the world. We will con­tinue to strive to remain at the very top, ​“said Alen Fiala, Vergal brand man­ager at Aminess.

Vergal is the name of an old source of fresh water — a syn­onym for health, purity and life — and It con­tin­ues today in the form of extra vir­gin olive oil that Aminess pro­duces from the vari­eties Istarska Bjelica, Frantoio, Pendolino, and Leccino, which they planted 15 years ago next to their hotels and camps.

The olive groves are near the sea, which affects the olive fruit and the qual­ity of the oil. They har­vest and process 50 tons of olives a year and pro­duce about 5,000 liters of oil. Each vari­ety brings a unique taste and aroma, depend­ing on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the fruit, and for the award-win­ning Vergal Frantoio 2022 NYIOC judg­ing panel, arti­chokes, wal­nuts, radishes, spices and herbs stood out.

At Aminess, celebri­ties and other pro­duc­ers of extra vir­gin olives from the Croatian olive grow­ing regions of Istria and Dalmatia are eagerly await­ing rat­ings for their oils.

Last year, Istrian pro­duc­ers were respon­si­ble for 39 of Croatia’s haul of 86 awards.

Apr. 26 12:40 UTC

Costas Vassilopoulos report­ing from Athens

Darvari̇ Gida Tarim became the first Turkish pro­ducer to win four awards at the tenth edi­tion of the world’s largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion as results con­tinue to unfold on the Official Guide.

The pro­ducer from the Dardanelles Strait received two Gold Awards for its del­i­cate Ottoman White Label mono­va­ri­etal from the endemic Ayvalik vari­ety and the Byzantium Anna del­i­cate mono­va­ri­etal from Edremit.

Darvari also pock­eted two Silver Awards for another two mono­va­ri­etal extra vir­gin olive oils, the Ottoman Black Label and the Byzantium Irene both made from olives of the widely used Edremit vari­ety.

“We had dif­fi­cul­ties find­ing an ade­quate labor force for the har­vest, but we invested in some spe­cial equip­ment and had a good fruit­set,” co-owner Cem Erdilek said after the results were announced. ​“We are happy and proud of prov­ing our qual­ity and see­ing that we are on the cor­rect path.”

There are 113 brands from Turkey con­tend­ing in this year’s NYIOOC — the most ever sub­mit­ted by Anatolian pro­duc­ers.

Apr. 26 12:25 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Modern pro­cess­ing tech­nol­ogy imported from Italy, nurs­eries estab­lished in coop­er­a­tion with Mediterranean part­ners and build­ing on a solid knowl­edge of olive grow­ing helped China’s Gansu Times Olive Technology score a Silver Award at the 2022 NYIOOC. While not being a first for Chinese pro­duc­ers, such a rel­e­vant award was miss­ing since the 2017 Gold Award scored by Longnan Xiangyu Olives Development.

Born in 2018, Gansu Times Olive Technology sus­tain­abil­ity has been cer­ti­fied by the inter­na­tional panel of B Corporation which assigned a 92.4 score to the olive farm. The olives come from Gansu Longnan, the heart of Chinese olive oil pro­duc­tion, a city lay­ing on a lat­i­tude close to that of many pro­duc­ing coun­tries in the Mediterranean Basin.

The win from Gansu is not sur­pris­ing given the strong invest­ments that local farm­ers have been pour­ing into expand­ing olive pro­duc­tion and improv­ing their prod­ucts. In 2021 the land ded­i­cated to olive orchards in China reached more than 42,000 hectares, accord­ing to the Xinhua news agency. Olive farm­ing now employs thou­sands in the area and is con­sid­ered a pil­lar of the local econ­omy.

“Every drop of olive oil we pro­duce is an exam­ple of the exchange and inte­gra­tion between China and abroad,” said Xinhua Li Gang, gen­eral man­ager of Gansu Times Olive Technology.

Apr. 26 12:11 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

France’s Moulin Oltremonti that has won a Gold Award for its medium-inten­sity blended Taggiasca extra vir­gin olive oil is one of an increas­ing num­ber of pro­duc­ers tap­ping into the grow­ing oleo­tourism mar­ket.

This rel­a­tively new trend in agri­tourism, which includes recre­ational and infor­ma­tive activ­i­ties at olive mills and groves, has in Italy expanded to the extent that pro­vi­sions which reg­u­late the wine tourism sec­tor have been extended to ​“olive oil tourism activ­i­ties” since January 1, 2020.

Spain’s Oleotour Jaén project is grow­ing the region’s oleo­tourism by pro­mot­ing farm attrac­tions through­out the province.

Oleotourism offers Mediterranean des­ti­na­tions an escape from the sea­son­al­ity of gen­eral tourism: The busiest period for the oleo­tourism sec­tor are dur­ing the har­vest months later in the year, which are gen­er­ally the qui­etest months for the rest of the tourism sec­tor.

Apr. 22 22:35 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

“Their wins are a huge acco­lade for our New Zealand pro­duc­ers who are fanat­i­cal about best prac­tice across all facets of their pro­duc­tion,” Gayle Sheridan, the exec­u­tive offi­cer of Olives New Zealand, told Olive Oil Times.

Olives NZ has been enter­ing sev­eral of the top local olive oil brands in NYIOOC since 2015. This year so far, Olives NZ entries have won two Gold Awards and one Silver.

The organic Totara Tunnel is a first time Gold Award win­ner. Blue Earth also won Gold this year, as it did in 2018. Kapiti Olives won a Silver Award.

“We are await­ing in antic­i­pa­tion on the results of our fourth entry and the other inde­pen­dent entries [from New Zealand],” Sheridan added.

Apr. 22 14:30 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

The del­i­cate organic Souri extra vir­gin olive oil by Lebanese pro­ducer Solar that has been awarded with a Gold at the tenth World Olive Oil Competition is made from olives har­vested from trees around 150 years old.

Olive trees typ­i­cally start yield­ing fruit between five and 12 years of age, with Arbequina and Koroneiki some­times start­ing at around three years. In 2012, olive trees grow­ing in Jerusalem’s Garden of Gethsemane were found to be at least 900 years old, and in 2018 Olive Oil Times reported these trees were still pro­duc­ing fruit.

The Olive Tree of Vouves on Crete, which is one of the world’s old­est olive trees, is between 2,000 and 4,000 years old and it still bears fruit.

Apr. 21 13:59 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Picholine olive oil, which has secured Moroccan pro­ducer Divine Olive a Silver Award for its medium-inten­sity extra vir­gin olive oil at the 2022 NYIOOC, was found to have neu­ro­pro­tec­tive abil­i­ties against Alzheimer’s dis­ease accord­ing to an arti­cle pub­lished in Olive Oil Times.

The researchers who con­ducted the study used a com­mer­cial vari­ety of Picholine extra vir­gin olive oil from France.
Picholine is the most widely-grown olive cul­ti­var in its native France, as well as in Morocco. Yielding fruity olive oils with nutty notes, this adapt­able cul­ti­var is grown world­wide.

Apr. 21 00:49 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

With 1,267 brands from 28 coun­tries vying for the indus­try’s most cov­eted qual­ity awards, this year’s World Olive Oil Competition rep­re­sents the largest and most diverse inter­na­tional col­lec­tion of olive oils ever assem­bled and ana­lyzed.

Producers from Turkey and Croatia together account for 228 brands, up from a com­bined 56 just 5 years ago. The dra­matic rise in both coun­tries fol­lowed ini­tia­tives by regional and national orga­ni­za­tions to increase the vis­i­bil­ity of their local oils by mak­ing a strong show­ing at the World Competition.

Apr. 20 23:45 UTC

Costas Vassilopoulos report­ing from Athens

Based in the land of Aristotle in Chalkidiki, first-time entrant Paschalas earned a Silver Award for its Entelechia extra vir­gin made from early har­vested olives of the indige­nous Chalkidiki vari­ety.

“It was our first time in the com­pe­ti­tion,” the owner Yiorgos Paschalas told Olive Oil Times min­utes after the win­ning announce­ment. ​“Our extra vir­gin was mar­keted less than a year ago and win­ning in this most pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tion has always been our aspi­ra­tion.”

The word ​‘Entelechia’ was coined by the great philoso­pher him­self, and it trans­lates to ​‘great care and atten­tion, and thor­ough­ness.’

“We rev­er­ently store Entelechia olive oil in a very ele­gant, glass bot­tle,” the com­pany noted. ​“Each bot­tle encloses the Aristotelian phi­los­o­phy, which is the basis of our inspi­ra­tion. It is the path from the seed to the plant, from the olive fruit to the olive oil, our com­ple­tion.”

Entelechia is an extra vir­gin of medium inten­sity char­ac­ter­ized by a bit­ter and spicy fla­vor with a long after­taste with fra­grances of fresh grass, olive and tomato leaves, arti­choke and almond.

Apr. 20 23:02 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

A few weeks into the com­pe­ti­tion, Tunisian pro­duc­ers have already been racked up 14 awards as the 2022 NYIOOC con­tin­ues reveal­ing this year’s win­ning brands via a live feed on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils. Given these ini­tial results this year Tunisian pro­duc­ers could even exceed the record 30 awards scored at the 2021 NYIOOC.

The awards earned by Tunisian pro­duc­ers con­firm the matu­rity of a sec­tor which has been steadily grow­ing not only for the qual­ity of the prod­uct but also for its vol­umes.

The pro­jected pro­duc­tion ranks the North African coun­try fourth after the major European Union pro­duc­ers: Spain, Italy and Greece.

Apr. 20 12:40 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Gansu Times Olive Technology, the Chinese pro­ducer that has won a Silver Award for its del­i­cate Frantoio extra vir­gin olive oil at this year’s NYIOOC, is located in the Asian country’s largest olive grow­ing region, the pre­fec­tural city of Longnan in China’s Gansu province.

With its Mediterranean ter­roir, Longnan is home to more than a hun­dred cul­ti­vars, and accounts for approx­i­mately 50 per­cent of China’s olive trees. Around 85 per­cent of China’s olive oil is pro­duced in Longnan.

Earlier last year mar­ket research firm Mordor Intelligence esti­mated the Asia-Pacific olive oil mar­ket will grow at an annual com­pounded rate of 4.2 per­cent from 2020 to 2025, but it was reported that local con­sumers still favored imported olive oils.

Apr. 19 18:26 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Cyprus is once again among the pro­duc­ers of the best extra vir­gin olive oils in the world. With its organic-grown olives pressed within thirty min­utes from har­vest, the non-fil­tered bit­ter and fruity Atsas Silver Edition has won a Silver Award at the 2022 NYIOOC, which comes after the Gold Award scored at the 2021 NYIOOC.

Just like other high qual­ity EVOOs by Atsas Organic Products, Silver Edition bot­tles are dis­tin­guished by their totally black coat which, accord­ing to the com­pany, ​“pre­vent direct con­tact with light and oxi­da­tion,” there­fore safe­guard­ing over time the qual­ity of the con­tents.

Atsas Silver Edition is a blend of Koroneiki and Kalamata olives which come from the small Evrychou vil­lage, in the Nicosia dis­trict, a rel­e­vant farm­ing area for some of the most tra­di­tional Mediterranean Basins’s crops. There, seven thou­sand Atsas olive trees share the land­scape with vine­yards and cere­als. It is a United Nations buffer zone, a spe­cial sta­tus which accord­ing to Atsas helped retain the land intact for many years.

“Our com­pany envi­sions the cre­ation and main­te­nance of a sus­tain­able agri­cul­tural ecosys­tem, through per­ma­cul­ture. We aim to con­tinue the unin­ter­rupted pro­duc­tion of our pre­mium extra vir­gin olive oil, while using farm­ing prac­tices that sup­port agro-ecol­ogy and meet the needs of the cli­mate and spe­cial soil con­di­tions of our farm. Our team works towards turn­ing the land into a unique and fruit­ful agro-ecosys­tem,” the com­pany noted on its web­site.

On its premises, the com­pany man­ages a water reser­voir and the infra­struc­ture needed to take care of the trees and the trans­for­ma­tion of the olives.

Apr. 19 18:23 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

Nestled in the heart of Molise, in cen­tral Italy, Collettivo Castelboom is made up of pro­fes­sion­als from the sec­tors of cul­ture, fash­ion, food, and research.

Going beyond the mere con­cept of farm, it is ​“a col­lec­tive of artists, musi­cians, archi­tects, design­ers, chefs, philoso­phers, and anthro­pol­o­gists, where every­one is a bearer of their own skills related to land and cul­ture, and all are united by the love for nature and beauty,” the founders say in the pre­sen­ta­tion of the far-reach­ing project.

Their mis­sion is to cre­ate jobs, pro­mote the ter­ri­tory, pre­serve the envi­ron­ment, enhance the value of the local agri­cul­tural sec­tor, and facil­i­tate cul­tural aware­ness. Repeating last year’s suc­cess at the World Olive Oil Competition, the group earned a Gold Award with Solare, a Gentile di Larino mono­va­ri­etal char­ac­ter­ized by a medium fruiti­ness and a well-bal­anced bit­ter­ness and spici­ness, with a preva­lent hint of fresh almond and notes of olive leaf and field herbs.

Apr. 15 18:28 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Takao Nouen in Shodoshima has once again scored a Gold Award at the Wolrd Olive Oil Competition. The pro­ducer from Japan was awarded for a Nevadillo Blanco and Manzanilla blend. Takao Nouen tells vis­i­tors to its web­site that suc­cess begins by tak­ing care of the soil, har­vest­ing each vari­ety at the right time and tak­ing care of the olives by hand, one by one. Olive Hatake car­ries tast­ing sen­sa­tions of herbs, green tea, green almond and grass, the judg­ing panel noted.

So far, four Gold and two Silver Awards have been announced for Japanese brands, out of the 8 brands that were entered from the coun­try, accord­ing to the offi­cial sta­tis­tics.

Apr. 14 11:51 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

“We are happy and proud of the results we have achieved,” Donato Conserva told Olive Oil Times right after the sec­ond Gold Award earned by Mimì at the tenth NYIOOC popped up on the live feed of the com­pe­ti­tion.

The Apulian pro­ducer is present in the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils with his Coratina for the sev­enth year in a row.

“These awards repay us all the efforts made, espe­cially cop­ing with the cli­mate chal­lenges, to guar­an­tee to our con­sumers the high­est level of qual­ity,” the farmer said. ​“We believe these recog­ni­tions obtained in such impor­tant com­pe­ti­tion can give us a boost to the cre­ation of new syn­er­gies and col­lab­o­ra­tions.”

Stretching over a 75-hectare (185-acre) area between Modugno and neigh­bor­ing vil­lages in the province of Bari, the olive orchard where Mimì extra vir­gin olive oils are born includes 23,000 plants of Ogliarola Barese, Coratina, Peranzana, Cima di Melfi, and Nocellara del Belice.

At the core of the farm lies a high-tech mill, where the fruits are crushed imme­di­ately – often within a few hours of har­vest­ing.

“We con­stantly enhance our pro­duc­tion process with tech­ni­cal updates and improve­ments,” Conserva pointed out. A col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Polyclinic of Bari is under­way to con­duct stud­ies on the nutraceu­ti­cal prop­er­ties of extra vir­gin olive oil. At Mimì farm, spe­cial atten­tion is given to the organolep­tic pro­files, with a view to devel­op­ing prod­ucts with a high polyphe­nol con­tent.

Apr. 14 11:48 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

As olive grow­ing is bur­geon­ing in Georgia and its grow­ers are work­ing towards play­ing a piv­otal role in the South Caucasus olive sec­tor, local farm­ers are cul­ti­vat­ing Edremit and Gemlik olives, two cul­ti­vars imported from Turkey.

Edremit, the cul­ti­var that has earned Turkish pro­ducer Mavras Zeytincilik two Silver Awards at this year’s NYIOOC, is widely grown in Turkey and accounts for almost a fifth of the country’s olive trees. It is favored by Georgian farm­ers due to its cold har­di­ness and adapt­abil­ity to local farm­ing prac­tices, such as cop­per spray­ing.

Also known as Ayvalik, Edremit olives pro­duce oils with intense fruiti­ness and del­i­cate bit­ter­ness.

Apr. 13 12:47 UTC

Jusup Nedjeljko report­ing from Zadar

As the 2022 NYIOOC results con­tinue in their world­wide syn­di­ca­tion, oils from Istria, the most famous Croatian olive grow­ing region, appear among the win­ners.

“Last year Gold and Silver, now two Gold. This is the best con­fir­ma­tion that we are con­stantly improv­ing in qual­ity,” Patricija Vanđelić told Olive Oil Times.

The Vanđelić fam­ily farm is located in the heart of Istria, between Bale and Rovinj along the Adriatic coast. 6,500 olive trees grow on about 60 hectares. There are also cher­ries, nec­tarines, apri­cots, apples, pears, berries and grapes. However, the most famous bearer of the name Nono Remiggio is their ​“liq­uid gold” from the indige­nous Buža, Istarska Bjelica, Rosinjola, Karbonaca, Leccino, Pendolino, Frantoia and Maraiola vari­eties.

“Our olives grow at 50 to 90 meters above sea level, where fresh air always flows, which with a lot of sun gives excep­tional qual­ity fruit,” Vanđelić told us. They start the sea­son by hand pick­ing and the fresh fruits are imme­di­ately processed in their own oil mill. Patricia points out that this is a great advan­tage. They do not depend on oth­ers and reg­u­late the pro­cess­ing them­selves within 12 hours of har­vest.

The Nono Remiđo brand oil, named after their grand­fa­ther, reaches the mar­ket in qual­ity pack­ag­ing — thick dark glass and and an anti-oxi­da­tion plug keep the color, smell and taste of the oil as if it had just been filled.

Both of the Vanđelić oils are char­ac­ter­ized by intense aroma and mod­er­ate bit­ter­ness, while the sense of taste is dom­i­nated by the fruiti­ness of Artichoke, Herbs, Flowers, Green Pepper and Vanilla.

“We try to keep the qual­ity the same or, as it is this year — even bet­ter, Patricija Vanđelić told the Olive Oil Times. ​“The NYIOOC Awards are the best rec­om­men­da­tion to our cus­tomers. In addi­tion to the per­ma­nent ones, we hope for new ones.”

Apr. 13 12:32 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

As the 2022 NYIOOC moved into its sec­ond week, the first Galega mono­va­ri­etal has been awarded to the pro­ducer Monte do Camelo, located in Portugal’s Alto Alentejo region east of the cap­i­tal Lisbon for their del­i­cate Tratturo de Fronteira extra vir­gin olive oil.

Alto Alentejo forms part of Portugal’s Alentejo region, which is renown for its out­stand­ing olive oils.

Galega, known as the ​“Portuguese Olive,” is the Mediterranean country’s flag­ship cul­ti­var and accounts for 80 per­cent of its olive pro­duc­tion. Fruity, well bal­anced and slightly bit­ter, this drought-tol­er­ant, ancient vari­ety is mainly cul­ti­vated in the north.

Apr. 12 17:41 UTC

Jusup Nedjeljko report­ing from Zadar

“Our qual­ity is con­stant. The only thing miss­ing was this addi­tional step, which we wished for and thank God,” said Dean Fabijančić, a suc­cess­ful olive grower and owner of a fam­ily farm from Istria, the most famous olive grow­ing region in Croatia.

His two oils, the Vetta Blend of Bjelica, Leccina and Buža, and the mono­va­ri­etal Vetta Buža, have just won Gold Awards at the 2022 NYIOOC.

“All our olives are grown nat­u­rally and organ­i­cally. We pro­duce high-qual­ity EVOO with a spe­cific taste in one of the best olive grow­ing regions in the world — Istria,” Fabijančić told Olive Oil Times.

The NYIOOC 2022 judges rated the oils robust and emphat­i­cally fruity. The fla­vors of arti­choke, pep­per, bit­ter almond, pine nuts, wal­nut, green almond and herbs dom­i­nate.

“Our oil has the sym­bolic name Vetta, which in Croatian means Top. It is the name of the place where we planted the first olive grove, but it also reflects the desire to be at the very top in terms of qual­ity, said Fabijančić, the win­ner of this year’s first Gold Awards for Istria.

Out of a total of 86 awards for Croatian olive grow­ers last year, 39 were Istrian brands.

Apr. 12 11:58 UTC

Costas Vasilopoulos report­ing from Athens

Extra vir­gin olive oils from Turkey have joined the envi­able group of early award win­ners at the 2022 edi­tion of the world’s largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion.

Egenin Kalbi, based in Manisa province in the west­ern of the coun­try, won a Silver Award for its Arbequina mono­va­ri­etal.

Mavras Zeytincilik, from the region of Küçükkuyu, clinched two Silver Awards for its Mavras mono­va­ri­etal and Mavras organic mono­va­ri­etal both made from olives of the Edremit vari­ety.

“Our olive oils, com­pet­ing world­wide, were once again hon­ored with sil­ver awards,” the com­pany said. ​“We are proud to rep­re­sent Turkey.”

Apr. 10 11:10 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

On the six day into the tenth World Olive Oil Competition, already five extra vir­gin olive oils from Tuscany can be found on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils.

The cham­pi­ons includes blends — Podere Il Montaleo, pro­duced in Casale Marittimo near Pisa (Moraiolo, Frantoio, Maurino, Leccino, Pendolino); Antico Poggiolo from Pistoia (Frantoio, Leccino and Moraiolo); Le Balze, that is made on the hills of Florence (Frantoio, Moraiolo, Leccino) — and mono­va­ri­etals – Kali Organic Toscano IGP from Castiglione della Pescaia (Leccino) and Il Cavallino Special edi­tion pro­duced on the coast of Bibbona (Leccio del Corno).

“This Gold Award con­firms, once again, that the direc­tion we have taken is the right one,” Romina Salvadori, the pro­ducer behind Il Cavallino, com­mented on the result. ​“Not only do we run an olive grove and a mill and make a top prod­uct, but most impor­tantly, we take care of our land with great care and respect, liv­ing in har­mony with nature, in a healthy envi­ron­ment.”

The com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­ity is indeed a shared value between all these pro­duc­ers, who empha­size their link with the ter­ri­tory through the use of typ­i­cally Tuscan vari­eties, where you can eas­ily per­ceive notes of arti­choke, almond, this­tle, chicory, and aro­matic herbs.

Visiting their farms, har­mo­niously inte­grated in the land­scape, from the shores to the inland areas, means to dis­cover the dif­fer­ent souls that com­pose the unique charm of Tuscany

Apr. 7 18:33

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

For the sec­ond year in a row the sur­pris­ing fla­vors of Fruité Vert AOP have earned the French pro­ducer Moulin de la Coquille a Gold Award.

“A pow­er­ful olive oil which will sub­li­mate your sal­ads,” noted the fam­ily com­pany, whose olive orchards thrive in the Vallée des Baux in Provence, between Fontvieille and Les Baux de Provence. Since the 6^th Century CE, olive trees have been grown in this fer­tile region in south­east France which is today shared with renowned vine­yards.

Anglandau, Grossane, Salonenque, Verdale and Pitcholine are the five cul­ti­vars which allow Moulin de la Coquille to pro­duce its extra vir­gin olive oils under the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Europe’s local spe­cialty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. ​“It guar­an­tees com­pli­ance with strict spec­i­fi­ca­tions of which trace­abil­ity and the search for excel­lence are insep­a­ra­ble,” the fam­ily noted. And that guar­an­teed one more Gold for their Fruité Vert.

Apr. 7 12:39 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

A few days from the start of the World Olive Oil Competition, Agraria Riva del Garda earned a Gold Award for its organic blend 46° Parallelo Biologico. It is pro­duced on the north­ern banks of Lake Garda, a pre-alpine area that enjoys a Mediterranean micro­cli­mate thanks to the pres­ence of the wide fresh­wa­ter basin. Here, Casaliva, Frantoio and Leccino find the ideal con­di­tions to thrive. ​“We are delighted with this recog­ni­tion,” Massimiliano Consolo, the busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ager of the com­pany, told Olive Oil Times. ​“Despite a cam­paign that was not easy due to cli­matic issues, we man­aged to obtain a top qual­ity prod­uct.”

Apr. 8 12:08 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

On day four of the 2022 NYIOOC, eighty-one award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oils have been unveiled on the Official Guide. Browsing through the vari­eties, you may have noticed that five of them are made up of one sin­gle vari­ety: Coratina.

A late ripen­ing fruit, it is renowned for a very high polyphe­nol con­tent. Originally from Corato, near Bari in Puglia, Coratina olive trees can now be found all over the world. At Oilalá farm, in Barletta, they grow next to Peranzana. In California, at Cobram Estate, they are cul­ti­vated together with Picual, Arbosana, Arbequina, Mission, and Manzanillo.

Coratina oils are usu­ally rec­og­niz­able by their bold char­ac­ter marked by a medium or, more fre­quently, intense level of fruiti­ness. A pep­per-like spici­ness and a res­olute bit­ter­ness embrace a note of fresh almond, which is per­ceived in the nose and mouth, where sen­sa­tions of grass and arti­choke might also emerge.

However, the descrip­tion of such sharp taste should not intim­i­date the new­bies of the olive oil world. Today’s high-tech mills, com­bined with the exper­tise of tech­ni­cians, blenders, and tasters who are able to strike the right bal­ance of ele­ments, allow us to enjoy Coratina mono­va­ri­etals that are extra­or­di­nary sen­sory expe­ri­ences.

Apr. 8 00:22 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Four days into the tenth edi­tion of the World Olive Competition, pro­duc­ers from Italy have already won 20 awards — 17 Golds and 3 Silvers. First-time win­ner Tenuta Venterra struck Gold with a medium-inten­sity organic blend. “[This award] is greatly sat­is­fy­ing after all the efforts we made through­out the year,” owner Antonella Ferrara said in a news update on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oil. Italy has entered 208 of the 1,267 entries in the world’s largest olive oil qual­ity con­test.

Apr. 8 00:06 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Producers in the United States have built on their impres­sive start ear­lier this week by win­ning another six awards. Oregon-based Durant Olive Mill earned three Gold Awards for its Mission, Frantoio and Koroneiki mono­va­ri­etals and a Silver for its medium-inten­sity blend.

The Gorgia (U.S.) pro­ducer Five Otters won a Gold Award or its field blend of Arbequina, Arbosana and Koroneiki. Sharon Flanagan, the owner of Five Otters said in a news update on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oil that grow­ing olives is ​“new to this region in Georgia and my hope is this achieve­ment encour­ages more grow­ers in the area.” At this stage, pro­duc­ers in the United States have earned 16 Awards at the 2022 NYIOOC.

Apr. 7 17:39 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Breathtaking views of the Adriatic sea frame the cen­tury-old olive trees that grow in the island of Šolta, in Croatia, kissed by Dalmatia’s most gen­tle winds. There, OPG Lucio cre­ates two world-class extra vir­gin olive oils. Its Lucio Šoltanka mono­va­ri­etal and Lucio Oblica & Šoltanka blend have each won a Gold Award at the 2022 NYIOOC.

Grown among rows of herbs, rose­mary and laven­der, Lucio’s olive trees are strictly the locally-cher­ished Dalmatian cul­ti­vars such as Levantinka that offer the palate some bit­ter notes and a light touch of piquant. In Lucio’s Levantinka mono­va­ri­etal EVOO, the 2022 NYIOOC judg­ing panel has found tast­ing sen­sa­tions of herbs, green pep­per, chicory and radish.

Apr. 7 13:42 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Israel and Arab chil­dren together design the labels of the 2022 NYIOOC Gold Award win­ner Extra Positive Olive Oil, a bit­ter and spicy mono­va­ri­etal EVOO fruit of Coratina olive trees. Produced by a non profit orga­ni­za­tion of Jewish and Arab women work­ing for change, the award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil will help finance local coop­er­a­tion and com­mu­nity farm­ing projects.

Apr. 7 11:33 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Olive oil pro­duc­ers from Spain have so far won 18 awards — 15 Gold and three Silver — in the first three days of the 2022 NYIOOC.

“The award con­firms the path we have to fol­low in order to offer our cus­tomers the best qual­ity,” Ecológica La Olivilla’s Juan Ignacio Valdés Alcocer said in a news update on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils after win­ning a Gold Award for the third con­sec­u­tive year.

Spanish pro­duc­ers have sub­mit­ted 159 oil sam­ples to the NYIOOC this year, their sec­ond-high­est num­ber of entries in the World Competition.

Apr. 7 11:29 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Producers in the United States have bagged ten awards in the first three days of the 2022 NYIOOC as results con­tinue to be released. Il Fiorello Olive Oil Company has taken home a Gold for its organic Moraiolo and two Silvers for its Pendolino and its organic Frantoio. Cobram Estate has been awarded a Gold for its medium-inten­sity Coratina, Silver for its Arbequina and another for a del­i­cate Arbequina. Showa Farm, Oh Olive Oil, Rancho Milagro and Frantoio Grove won the other four awards.

Apr. 7 11:26 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

“There is ​“noth­ing like a bit of com­pet­i­tive­ness to focus the mind,” Nick Wilkinson, co-owner of Rio Largo Olive Estate in South Africa told us as he and other South African pro­duc­ers awaited the results of their entries

“Each year we pre­pare for our har­vest know­ing that this com­pe­ti­tion is com­ing up. We have par­tic­i­pated from the out­set and feel hon­ored that a small fam­ily estate all the way from the south­ern tip of Africa is able to stand its ground among all those inter­na­tional estates that have been pro­duc­ing extra vir­gin olive oils of dis­tinc­tion for gen­er­a­tions. It keeps us on our game to con­tin­u­ously pro­duce top qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil year after year.”

Apr. 6 18:49 UTC

Costas Vasilopoulos report­ing from Athens

Producers from Crete and the Peloponnese are rep­re­sent­ing Greece so far in the early results of the 2022 World Olive Oil Competition, hav­ing won 5 Awards (3 Gold and 2 Silver) in the world’s most pres­ti­gious olive oil qual­ity con­test.

Many other olive oil pro­duc­ing ter­ri­to­ries of the coun­try, how­ever, have already estab­lished an award-win­ning tra­di­tion in the com­pe­ti­tion.

The island of Lesvos in the Aegean Sea, Corfu and Kefalonia in the Ionian Sea, cen­tral Greece, Chalkidiki and the area of Makri in north­ern Greece, among oth­ers, have suc­ceeded with their excel­lent EVOOs in pre­vi­ous edi­tions, and com­pet­ing pro­duc­ers from these areas are eager to see if they will tri­umph this year as well.

Apr. 6 17:30 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Fourteen Gold Awards in seven years have been col­lected by two extra vir­gin olive oils pro­duced by Rafael Alfonso Aguilera near the beau­ti­ful Tabernas Desert, in Spain.

The mono­va­ri­etal Oro del Desierto Picual and the Oro del Desierto Organic Coupage blend each won a new Gold Award at the 2022 NYIOOC.

Lots of sun, con­sis­tent tem­per­a­tures and a quick extrac­tion at har­vest time, are the main ingre­di­ents of the win­ning Picual mono­va­ri­etal whose tast­ing sen­sa­tions offer flow­ers, banana, arti­choke, almond and herbs.

The unique desert loca­tion is the set­ting for the com­pa­ny’s organic and sus­tain­able approach to farm­ing and high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“An ade­quate man­age­ment of the olive grove needs care to obtain a cor­rect fer­til­ity, pro­duc­tion and main­te­nance of the envi­ron­ment, obtain­ing also a prod­uct free of chem­istry,” the com­pany said of upon learn­ing of their extended win­ning streak at the World Olive Oil Competition.

Apr. 6 15:14 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

The deep bond between the beauty of the ter­ri­tory and the qual­ity of prod­ucts is now an estab­lished fact.

In the last decades, aware­ness has grown among Italian farm­ers that only a healthy envi­ron­ment can yield an excel­lent extra vir­gin olive oil. This real­iza­tion pro­moted a vir­tu­ous cir­cle where the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment, includ­ing its his­tor­i­cal and nat­ural her­itage, and the improve­ment of the sen­so­r­ial and nutri­tional fea­tures of prod­ucts go hand in hand.

Consider, for exam­ple, Nino Centonze, whose farm in west­ern Sicily’s Belice Valley has archae­o­log­i­cal remains dat­ing back to 800 BC. Or, Tamia in Tuscia, that bor­ders the ancient pil­grim trail known as Via Francigena. Or, Kali Organic Toscano IGP – the first Tuscan extra vir­gin olive oil to receive a Gold Award at 2022 NYIOOC – which is pro­duced right next to the gor­geous beaches of Tuscany.

“We have always believed that the real qual­ity can only come from a healthy envi­ron­ment,” said Lorenzo Fasola Bologna, the Umbrian pro­ducer behind the multi-awarded Castello Monte Vibiano Vecchio. ​“We have the priv­i­lege of liv­ing in such a beau­ti­ful land that our mis­sion is to value and pre­serve it.”

The Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils includes a Tourism sec­tion — a happy place for for­ward-look­ing nature and food lovers, trav­el­ers, hik­ers, and bik­ers who will find the best extra vir­gin olive oils and the out­stand­ing expe­ri­ences linked to them.

Apr. 6 13:15 UTC

Daniel Dawson report­ing from Montevideo

A Gold Award for The Škegro Family Winery brand Krš means Bosnia and Herzegovina are on the map of NYIOOC win­ners for the fifth straight year. Local offi­cials and pro­duc­ers in Herzegovina hope their results will spur the region’s fledg­ling olive oil indus­try.

As the results from Day 3 con­tinue to unfold, 46 awards have already been given out to pro­duc­ers from nine coun­tries with more steadily being announced over the course of the com­ing weeks.

Apr. 6 13:12 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

Just 46 win­ners have been revealed so far. If the suc­cess rate is con­sis­tent with recent NYIOOC tal­lies, we can expect as many as 800 more awards to be announced in the weeks ahead in this, the largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion ever.

Apr. 6 11:36 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

In the early results, New Zealand pro­duc­ers have hit the ground run­ning by tak­ing home two Gold and one Silver Award. Blue Earth Olive Oil and Totara Tunnel have won Gold Awards for their medium blend and medium Frantoio respec­tively. Kapiti Olives has been awarded a Silver for its del­i­cate blend.

Apr. 6 11:32 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Tunisian pro­ducer Olivko has done the North African coun­try proud by walk­ing away with five awards for its organic oils. The com­pany has been awarded Golds for its robust Chetoui, medium Chemlali and medium Wild Cultivar and Silver Awards for its del­i­cate Chetoui and medium Chetoui.

Apr. 6 11:28 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Palazzo di Varignana began pro­duc­ing high-end extra vir­gin olive oil only recently, in 2017, and now, and for the sec­ond year in a row, its organic Stiffonte has won a Gold Award at the 2022 NYIOOC. This Correggiolo mono­va­ri­etal is moved by the spe­cial inten­sity of its spice and bit­ter taste with notes of arti­choke, euca­lyp­tus and almond.

The Correggiolo’s dru­pes are eas­ily rec­og­nized by the peo­ple of the north­ern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna as they are char­ac­ter­ized by a typ­i­cally asym­met­ric and elon­gated shape. As they ripen, Correggiolo fruits wear a par­tially black coat­ing enlight­ened by pur­ple reflec­tions.

Palazzo di Varignana was rewarded with two more Gold Awards for its blends, Blend Verde and Blend Blu, which impressed the NYIOOC judges with their flow­ery and fruity notes.

Apr. 5 17:05

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

The pro­duc­ers of Lazio – Italy’s cen­tral region home to the cap­i­tal Rome – are eagerly fol­low­ing the unveil­ing of the win­ners of the 2022 NYIOOC. Their increas­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion over time at the World Olive Oil Competition has cor­re­sponded to an ever-grow­ing num­ber of acco­lades and to a stronger pres­ence on the world stage year after year.

Having gone from 9 Gold Awards col­lec­tively obtained in 2020 to 12 Golds in 2021, their expec­ta­tions for the ongo­ing edi­tion are high.

The region has a beau­ti­ful and var­ied ter­ri­tory, from moun­tain to sea, includ­ing vol­canic lakes. This is reflected in a rich olive bio­di­ver­sity which, in turn, is exalted by farm­ers through out­stand­ing extra vir­gin olive oils.

Among many, we find the blend A1980 pro­duced by Alessandra Nicolai on Lake Bolsena, the assort­ment of mono­va­ri­etals and blends pro­duced in Vetralla by Francesca Boni at Traldi estate, the Sabina PDO and new Roma PGI made at Frantoio Narducci, and the mono­va­ri­etals pro­duced by Lucia Iannotta in the area of​the Pontine Hills.

Ranging from the herba­ceous of the Caninese vari­ety to the tomato notes of Itrana, and pass­ing through the flo­ral scents of Salviana, the best extra vir­gin olive oils of the region will be show­cased on this year’s Official Guide.

Apr. 5 14:45 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

For the fourth time in a row, Agri Olive Shodoshima has won an award at the NYIOOC with one of its mono­va­ri­etals: Mission. It comes from a Japanese island nes­tled in the Seto inland sea, where winds and rain­fall nour­ish some of the most beau­ti­ful and fruit­ful olive trees in the coun­try.

Many believe that the first Japanese olive trees were grown here since the island is blessed by a Mediterranean-like cli­mate, which makes it an ideal cra­dle for olive grow­ing.

That’s one of the rea­sons behind the high qual­ity EVOO pro­duc­tion of AOS, but the com­pany also cites a sus­tain­able approach to olive grow­ing and fer­til­iza­tion made with olive water and com­post obtained by fer­ment­ing the pruned olive branches of the orchards.

The Mission cul­ti­var, widely known in California, main­tains its high polyphe­no­lic con­tent on Shodo island and bal­ances that with a dom­i­nat­ing tast­ing sen­sa­tion of arti­choke.

Apr. 5 14:01 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Three ele­gant bot­tles, three blends, three 2022 NYIOOC Gold Awards for Farchioni Olii extra vir­gin olive oils, com­ing from Umbria, the cen­tral Italy region renowned for its unique cui­sine.

Encased in a fash­ion­able white-capped con­tainer, one Gold Award went to Olivicoltura Eroica or heroic cul­ti­va­tion, so named as it comes from ancient olive trees grown on hard-to-reach steep slopes and ter­races.

Those trees are not only chal­leng­ing to main­tain and care for, they are also the wit­ness of time in a breath­tak­ing land­scape, an ideal place for a com­pany which started pro­duc­ing olive oil in 1780.

Apr. 5 10:57 UTC

Lisa Anderson report­ing from Cape Town

Will this year be Israel’s strongest show­ing at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition so far?

Israeli pro­ducer KeremZait was rewarded with two Golds, in one day receiv­ing the high­est num­ber of awards the Middle Eastern coun­try has ever received annu­ally at NYIOOC. If there is more in stall for Israel at this year’s con­test, will it encour­age more Israeli pro­duc­ers to intro­duce their oils into the global arena?

Up to now most of Israel’s oil has been pro­duced for domes­tic con­sump­tion.

Apr. 4 23:53

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

“Winning a fourth Gold Award in a row makes us proud and tells us that we are head­ing in the right direc­tion steadily,” said Vito Girone as soon as he saw his GangaLupo mono­va­ri­etal of Coratina on the offi­cial NYIOOC results.

The suc­cess of the Apulian pro­ducer fol­lows a strong com­mit­ment to qual­ity. His fam­ily com­pany runs a 22-hectare grove located on the flat coastal area of Santo Spirito, in the north of Bari. The fruits of 5,000 Coratina plants are col­lected at the proper time and then crushed in a state-of-the-art mill. Great care is ded­i­cated to obtain­ing the mono­va­ri­etal’s out­stand­ing sen­so­r­ial pro­file.

“Last olive cam­paign was com­plex due to drought,” Girone pointed out. ​“It was tough, but in the end we man­aged to over­come this issue and obtain a very good prod­uct. Now we are even more sat­is­fied with how we have addressed the chal­lenges we have been faced with, and we intend to con­tinue our work with the same deter­mi­na­tion.”

Apr. 4 23:36 UTC

Costas Vasilopoulos report­ing from Athens

It took only moments for Alexis Karabelas of AMG Karabelas to share his enthu­si­asm with Olive Oil Times after receiv­ing a two Gold Awards at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“Our joy is immense,” Karabelas told us. ​“Winning at NYIOOC is the cul­mi­na­tion of the har­vest­ing sea­son and the ulti­mate recog­ni­tion of our hard work. It was a demand­ing sea­son with five months of drought and extreme tem­per­a­tures pos­ing sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for grow­ers, but finally we achieved what we set out to do — pro­duce our pre­mium qual­ity EVOOs.”

A first-time par­tic­i­pant at NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, AMG Karabelas made an impres­sive debut with a 100 per­cent suc­cess rate: the com­pany received two Gold Awards from two entries,: Its Laurel & Flame Fresh from early har­vested olives of the local Tsabidolia vari­ety, and the Laurel & Flame Olympia PGI, a pre­mium blend made from the omnipresent Koroneiki and the Kolireiki vari­ety.

The Karabelas fam­ily are fourth-gen­er­a­tion olive grow­ers and pro­duc­ers, cul­ti­vat­ing 5,000 fam­ily-owned olive trees at the fer­tile land of Ancient Olympia in west­ern Peloponnese.

They process their olives at their state-of-the-art mill that they named ​“The Olive Temple,” and was designed by Alexis and his brother Francesco.

“It is only the sec­ond sea­son that our new mill is oper­at­ing and our first ever par­tic­i­pa­tion at NYIOOC, but we hit two out of two,” Karabelas said. ​“We will come back for more.”

Apr. 4 17:37 UTC

Ylenia Granitto report­ing from Rome

“It is such an honor to receive gold this year,” Christiane Wassmann told Olive Oil Times just moments after hear­ing the news of the Gold Award obtained at the World Olive Oil Competition.

The quin­tes­sence of the Lake Trasimeno olive bio­di­ver­sity – Moraiolo, Frantoio, Leccino, Pendolino, Dolce Agogia, Rosciola dell’Umbria, and Nero di Panicale – is expressed by Rastrello Single Family, the first Italian extra vir­gin olive oil to be awarded on the live feed on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils.

Rastrello unites organic olive groves of 1,300 plants and a bou­tique hotel in the 500-year-old Palazzo Grossi of Panicale, Umbria.

It is a fam­ily com­pany that man­ages both their lands and hos­pi­tal­ity struc­tures accord­ing to the prin­ci­ples of sus­tain­abil­ity. They imple­mented resource reuse and sav­ing sys­tems, as well as farm­ing meth­ods that employ low-impact prac­tices.

“After so much hard work and ded­i­ca­tion to try­ing to make the high­est qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pos­si­ble, it is very reward­ing to receive this recog­ni­tion,” Wassmann added. ​“It feels as if we are one step closer to mak­ing our area of Lago Trasimeno more well-known for our excel­lence in qual­ity in extra vir­gin olive oil’s global arena.”

Apr 4 17:35 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

Just a few hours into the 2022 NYIOOC results roll­out, farm­houses are already show­ing how hos­pi­tal­ity mixes with higher qual­ity EVOO.

The ​“Le Balze di Fontisterni” farm has just received a Silver Award for its organic Balze, a blend of Moraiolo (70 per­cent), Leccino (20 per­cent) and Frantoio (10 per­cent) olive vari­eties — three renowned cul­ti­vars which the pro­ducer har­vests by hand.

Balze is a very small organic pro­ducer whose olive trees are scat­tered on two hectares of the beau­ti­ful Tuscan hills near Florence.

Balze uses its EVOOs to char­ac­ter­ize the meals offered to guests. ​“Moraiolo, with its slightly bit­ter notes of arti­choke, aubergine and pep­per, will be enhanced with a Tuscan ribol­lita, roasted liver and black cab­bage, or tortelli with meat sauce,” the chef at Balze wrote.

Apr. 4 17:31 UTC

Paolo DeAndreis report­ing from Rome

California EVOOs already on show in early results. Il Fiorello Olive Oil Company has just scored two Silver Awards and a Gold for its Moraiolo, a medium-inten­sity mono­va­ri­etal from one of the most cher­ished Tuscan cul­ti­vars. In California, that means tast­ing sen­sa­tions of herbs, almond, wal­nut, arti­choke and euca­lyp­tus, the NYIOOC judges noted.

The com­pany earned its Silver Awards for Pendolino and Frantoio, two more mono­va­ri­etals crafted by the Californian pro­ducer who cares for 13 dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars in its Green Valley and Suisun Valley orchards.

Apr. 4 13:06

Daniel Dawson report­ing from Montevideo

AMG Karabelas is the first Greek pro­ducer to be awarded at the 2022 NYIOOC. The Olympia-based pro­duc­ers won a Gold Award for its Laurel & Flame Fresh brand, a medium Botsikoelia mono­va­ri­etal.

Meanwhile, Rastrello became the first Italian pro­ducer to claim vic­tory at the 2022 edi­tion of the world’s largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion. The Umbrian pro­duc­ers earned a Gold Award for its Single Family brand, an organic medium blend from Moraiolo, Frantoio, Leccino, Pendolino, Dolce Agogia, Rosciola dell’Umbria and Nero di Panicale olives.

Apr. 4 13:04 UTC

Nedjeljko Jusup report­ing from Zadar

Olive grow­ers and oil pro­duc­ers from Istria and Dalmatia are sat­is­fied with how many extra vir­gin olive oil sam­ples they sub­mit­ted to the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition this year and are eagerly await­ing the results.

Last year, Croatian pro­duc­ers earned 87 awards at the NYIOOC. This year, many are con­vinced that they will at least match last year’s results, and hope­fully, sur­pass them.

“We will prove that we have the high­est-qual­ity bou­tique pro­duc­tion in the world,” said Ivica Vlatković, a pre­vi­ous NYIOOC win­ner. ​“We do not have the largest num­ber of olive groves in the world, but what we pro­duce and put in bot­tles is of the high­est qual­ity.”

Apr. 4 17:27 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

The world’s largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion has been reveal­ing this year’s award-win­ning brands via a live feed on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils.

Rather than wait until all entries are judged before releas­ing the results in bulk as has been the cus­tom for the NYIOOC now in its tenth edi­tion, award-win­ning pro­duc­ers are learn­ing their out­comes in the order sam­ples were received by NYIOOC for judg­ing.

The NYIOOC’s remote judg­ing pro­to­cols allow the analy­ses of Northern and Southern Hemisphere oils when they are fresher and more likely to earn high marks from judges.

“Virtual tast­ings using our pro­pri­etary soft­ware allow us to do a bet­ter job by ana­lyz­ing sam­ples in their prime,” NYIOOC pres­i­dent Curtis Cord wrote in a January blog post. ​“This year, to give pro­duc­ers more time to pub­li­cize their achieve­ments and mar­ket their win­ning brands, we will release results as they come in instead of wait­ing until all entries have been judged,” he added.

Apr. 4 12:01 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

Among the pro­duc­ers from 27 coun­tries who reg­is­tered over 1,400 brands in the World Olive Oil Competition, some­one had to be first.

Today at noon (UTC) when the ear­li­est results were unveiled on the live feed of the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils, it was the Valdepeñas Olive Cooperative Society (Colival) who, for their Arbosana mono­va­ri­etal, earned the first of the indus­try’s most cov­eted award for the year, repeat­ing their Gold Award in 2021.

“We are absolutely con­vinced that qual­ity is our hall­mark, although the path is dif­fi­cult, labo­ri­ous and some­times lit­tle rec­og­nized by the sec­tor, and you think that so much effort is not worth it. But pre­cisely that con­ti­nu­ity, har­vest after har­vest, obtain­ing qual­ity is what makes us here today,” said the com­pany, which is based in the Valdepeñas munic­i­pal­ity in the Spain province of Ciudad Real, on its web­site.

April 3 23:56 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

Just under 12 hours to go before the first award win­ners are revealed on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils. The very first results will begin rolling out tomor­row (April 4) at 12:00 noon (UTC).

It will be the longest unveil­ing ever for the World Olive Oil Competition, with the results of more than 1,250 entries from 28 coun­tries released in real-time as the judg­ing pan­els’ find­ings are cer­ti­fied. The roll­out is expected to con­tinue through May.

Apr. 1 14:25 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

Among the 1,267 extra vir­gin olive oils entered in the 2022 World Olive Oil Competition, more con­tain oil from Koroneiki olives than any other vari­ety, the con­test orga­niz­ers pointed out, fol­lowed by Picual, Arbequina, Frantoio, Leccino and Coratina. In fact, there are 151 olive vari­eties (or cul­ti­vars) rep­re­sented in the mono­va­ri­etals and blends com­pet­ing for the olive oil indus­try’s most cov­eted award this year.

NYIOOC Panel Leader Kostas Liris explained that the Koroneiki is often referred to as the peace­maker. ​“The rel­a­tively low level of bit­ter­ness and pun­gency and smooth char­ac­ter make this vari­ety an ideal base to build a very good olive oil,” he said, ​“while the rel­a­tively high quan­tity of polyphe­nols of the vari­ety helps to main­tain qual­ity over time.”

Apr. 1 12:47 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

Registration for the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition closed today at noon (UTC), just days before the ear­li­est results are released on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils.

Producers from 28 coun­tries reg­is­tered 1,267 brands, sur­pass­ing last year’s record-break­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion of 1,171.

The first results in the 2022 edi­tion will be released Monday, April 4 and con­tinue until every sub­mit­ted entry has been judged and cer­ti­fied, some­time in May.

Mar. 30 19:19 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

As entries con­tinue to come in, Italy leads the way with 213 brands sub­mit­ted so far. Submissions from Spain stand at 167. There are already 20 per­cent more entries (132) from the United States than last year, 140 from Greece, 112 from Turkey, 110 from Croatia and 59 from Portugal in these last few days of open reg­is­tra­tion. Twenty-seven coun­tries are rep­re­sented.

Mar. 30 15:30 UTC

Daniel Dawson report­ing from Montevideo

Once again, the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition kicks off against a back­drop of global uncer­tainty.

In 2020, the world’s largest olive oil qual­ity com­pe­ti­tion rapidly moved to a remote judg­ing for­mat as the Covid-19 pan­demic engulfed the globe. This year, the war in Ukraine and uncer­tainty over the future of Europe will be on the minds of many pro­duc­ers eagerly await­ing the com­pe­ti­tion’s results next week.

“We are opti­mistic that the world is con­cen­trated on an olive oil com­pe­ti­tion,” said Hadas Lahav, the CEO of Sindyanna of Galilee.

The women-led Arab-Israel pro­duc­ers earned a Silver Award at the 2021 NYIOOC and have sub­mit­ted two extra vir­gin olive oils to this year’s edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion, Lahav said. She wants to win more awards but real­izes some things are more impor­tant.

“Everyone who is now fight­ing for a bet­ter world, against the war, every­thing that is not blood­shed and vio­lence is good, is absolutely opti­mistic,” she said. ​“Let’s do olive oil com­pe­ti­tions and not war.”

March 30 14:06 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

The NYIOOC said today that it will be another record-break­ing year in terms of the num­ber of entries in the world’s largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion, with sub­mis­sions exceed­ing 1,200 and reg­is­tra­tion clos­ing Friday.

Mar. 30 12:26 UTC

OOT Staff report­ing from New York

NYIOOC orga­niz­ers said the first results in the 2022 edi­tion will be released Monday, April 4 and con­tinue until every sub­mit­ted entry has been judged and cer­ti­fied, some­time in May.

“To give pro­duc­ers more time to pub­li­cize their achieve­ments and move inven­tory, we will now be releas­ing results as they come in, instead of wait­ing until all entries have been judged,” they said. Registration for this year’s con­test will close April 1.

The win­ning brands will be unveiled on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils and in spe­cial sec­tions of Olive Oil Times.

This is a devel­op­ing story. Check back for updates. (Updated Dec. 21, 2023 20:12)

More NYIOOC Coverage

As the results come in, check this page for updates from OOT writ­ers around the world and find more infor­ma­tion through the links below.