`Mario Solinas Extra Virgin Olive Oil Quality Award Winners Announced - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Mario Solinas Extra Virgin Olive Oil Quality Award Winners Announced

By Julie Butler
May. 21, 2011 13:32 UTC

Portugal and Spain have again dom­i­nated the Mario Solinas Quality Awards. The win­ners of this year’s edi­tion of the pres­ti­gious olive oil com­pe­ti­tion were announced yes­ter­day by the International Olive Council.

First prize in the intense green fruiti­ness cat­e­gory went to the Spanish pro­ducer El Labrador, while the medium green fruiti­ness and ripe fruiti­ness awards went to Portuguese pro­duc­ers: SAOV (Sociedade Agrícola Ouro Vegetal) and Sociedade Agricola do Conde.

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Second and third prize in the intense cat­e­gory went to Spain’s Aceites Campoliva and Greece’s Eirini Plomarioy respec­tively.

In the medium cat­e­gory they went to Portugal’s Azeites & Oleos Vegetales and Spain’s Almazaras de la Subbética.

And in the ripe cat­e­gory the run­ner-up was Portugal’s Gallo Worldwide and Spain’s Sovena España took third place.

The offi­cial prize-giv­ing cer­e­mony will be held at the IOC head­quar­ters in Madrid on June 17. The win­ners receive a medal and diploma and may announce the prize on the labels of EVOO of the same batch as the win­ning sam­ple.

A total of 97 oils – up from 75 last year – were entered. Of these, 42 were from Spain, 39 from Portugal, 9 from Greece, 3 from Turkey and one each from France, Israel, Italy and Morocco.

They were clas­si­fied into one of three sec­tions on the basis of the median inten­sity of their fruiti­ness. The IOC said that the oils were then, ​“assessed by a num­ber of IOC-recog­nised pan­els accord­ing to a spe­cial score sheet which marks them for their olfac­tory, gus­ta­tory and retronasal sen­sa­tions, and their har­mony, com­plex­ity and per­sis­tence.”

The six oils with the high­est scores in each sec­tion were declared final­ists and went on to be judged by an inter­na­tional jury.

Of the nine other final­ists, all were from Spain and Portugal except France’s Château Virant, in the medium cat­e­gory.

The other final­ists in the medium cat­e­gory were Portugal’s Soc. Agricola Quinta da Lagoalva de Cima and Spain’s Olivarera de Casariche.

The intense final­ists were Potosí 10 (Spain), Jeronimo Pedro Mendonça de Abreu e Lima (Portugal) and S.C.A. Olivarera de Pontanense de Oleoestepa (Spain). And in the ripe cat­e­gory Aucama (Portugal), Campos de Uleila (Spain) and Camp i Secció de Crèdit de Bellaguarda (Spain).

Málaga’s El Labrador, the intense cat­e­gory win­ner, also won in this cat­e­gory in 2008. On win­ning the award this week, Andrés López López, pres­i­dent of the fam­ily com­pany that pro­duces El Labrador, told Olive Oil Times that despite hav­ing won a range of major awards, it was dif­fi­cult to get a good price for the EVOO. ​“We are sell­ing it at the same price as four years ago.”

His daugh­ter, Rosario, said the fam­ily was truly pas­sion­ate about mak­ing high qual­ity olive oil. ​“But we can’t find buy­ers for it.” She said that 500ml of the award-win­ning extra vir­gin sells for about 10€ ($14) in the gourmet sec­tion of Spanish depart­ment store chain El Corte Inglés.


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