Lower Yield Doesn’t Stop U.S. Producers From Celebrating NYIOOC Wins

Part of our con­tin­u­ing spe­cial cov­er­age of the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Producers from the United States once again enjoyed a strong show­ing at the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Farmers and millers from California, Oregon and Texas com­bined to earn a total of 35 Gold and 33 Silver Awards from a total of 112 entries. While the num­ber of win­ners and entrants was on the low end com­pared with recent years, the suc­cess rate was the sec­ond-high­est yet, at 61 per­cent.

Once again, the vast major­ity of entrants came from California, which is respon­si­ble for nearly all olive oil pro­duc­tion in the U.S. Even the win­ning oils from Oregon blended local olives with California-grown olives.

Patricia King, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the California Olive Oil Council, said that the lower num­ber of entries to the com­pe­ti­tion was likely the result of a poor har­vest in California.

The Olive Oil Commission of California esti­mated that the har­vest in California would drop to below 11,5000 tons in the 2020/21 crop year as the result of many pro­duc­ers enter­ing an off-year in the olive’s nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle, worker short­ages caused by Covid-19 restric­tions and an incred­i­bly hot and dry year in much of the state.

Still, this did not stop 38 sep­a­rate pro­duc­ers from hav­ing their hard work rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tional panel of judges.

“The California extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers are com­mit­ted to craft­ing deli­cious extra vir­gin olive oils by adher­ing to best prac­tices, and many award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oils were pro­duced, despite a chal­leng­ing 2020 har­vest,” King told Olive Oil Times.

“The expo­sure of award-win­ning California extra vir­gin olive oil dri­ves increased sales,” she added.

Among the win­ning pro­duc­ers at the world’s most pres­ti­gious olive oil qual­ity con­test was California Olive Ranch (COR), the largest olive oil pro­ducer in the United States. COR earned a Gold and two Silver Awards for its Global Blend Medium, and Arbequina and Arbosana mono­va­ri­etals, respec­tively.

“Although it was an ​‘off’ year with a lower yield, our new, state-of-the-art pre­clean­ing sys­tem helped us greatly min­i­mize for­eign mate­r­ial and keep our qual­ity high,” Michael Fox, the company’s CEO, told Olive Oil Times. ​“We also bal­ance low crop years with har­vest start times to ensure we are get­ting the oil at peak qual­ity fla­vor.”

“Finally, as it was par­tic­u­larly hot this sea­son, we shifted a greater per­cent­age of our har­vest to night-time which allowed the olives to stay cool before milling,” he added.

Fox said that he was proud that the NYIOOC judges rec­og­nized the company’s abil­ity to craft bal­anced and high-qual­ity medium oils both from local California olives as well as from a blend of oils from the company’s inter­na­tional grow­ing part­ners.

“We know that the NYIOOC has a very tough set of judges and take great pride when we receive an NYIOOC award know­ing our oils did well against other high-qual­ity oils,” added Fox.

The sat­is­fac­tion of hav­ing a year’s worth of hard work val­i­dated by the NYIOOC was a com­mon theme for pro­duc­ers through­out the U.S., regard­less of size.

Among the biggest win­ners at this year’s edi­tion of the NYIOOC was Pasolivo, which earned five Gold Awards, the most of any U.S. pro­ducer.

“[We are] so happy and hon­ored,” Marisa Bloch, Pasolivo’s gen­eral man­ager, told Olive Oil Times. ​“It is really amaz­ing to work with a prod­uct from the grow­ing sea­son, to har­vest to the oil pro­duc­tion, to then see it win awards.”

“It is so reward­ing to see that such an expe­ri­enced panel of judges appre­ci­ated the qual­ity of our oils as much as we do,” she added.

Bloch said that what sets the San Luis Obispo County-based pro­ducer apart from the com­pe­ti­tion is metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail and a care­ful process for select­ing which oils to craft each year.

“One of the unique things that Pasolivo does is we har­vest and mill each vari­ety sep­a­rately,” she said. ​“We grow 12 vari­eties on our prop­erty and mill each one on its own and store them in their own tank. I then taste all of the oils and come up with our blends or sin­gle vari­ety oils for each year.”

“We always like to have a mild oil, a medium and a cou­ple of robust [oils] that either have green and grassy notes, or are really pun­gent and pep­pery,” she added. ​“We also are for­tu­nate to have our own on-site mill so that we are able to mill within hours of pick­ing.”

California – not to men­tion the rest of the U.S. – is a large and unique state. The Golden State is about one-third larger than Italy and boasts plenty of diverse and unique micro­cli­mates. Producers from 20 dif­fer­ent coun­ties, stretch­ing from the south of the state to the north were awarded at the 2021 NYIOOC.

In San Diego County, at the very south­ern end of the state, Pitchouline was awarded for the sec­ond year in a row for its organic medium blend made from Frantoio, Coratina, Leccino, Manzanillo and Pendolino olives.

“It is always a plea­sure and honor to receive an NYIOOC award,” co-owner Fabien Tremoulet told Olive Oil Times. ​“There are many com­pe­ti­tions but NYIOOC is really the ref­er­ence in the indus­try… The awards are always well per­ceived by cus­tomers.”

Tremoulet said the secret to Pitchouline’s mul­ti­ple suc­cesses in their young his­tory is care­ful stew­ard­ship of the land, which later becomes appar­ent in the oil.

“There are so many extra vir­gin olive oils from all around the world with amaz­ing attrib­utes,” he said. ​“Nevertheless, we do believe that such a healthy and fine prod­uct should always be cer­ti­fied organic. In addi­tion to being cer­ti­fied organic, we fol­low bio­dy­namic farm­ing prin­ci­ples. Our soil is what sets us apart.”

Farther north in Tulare County, which is home to Mount Whitney and two national parks, Olivaia earned two Silver Awards for a pair of medium blends.

“I was thrilled to see that both entries got awards,” owner Giulio Zavolta told Olive Oil Times. ​“We have worked hard to turn around our Block X, our cen­ten­nial trees were headed towards mulch as pre­vi­ous own­ers were going to pull the trees to plant almonds.”

“After reha­bil­i­tat­ing them we began focus­ing on mak­ing oil and it was only in 2017 that we made our first oil,” he added. ​“Our goal was to show oth­ers that there is value in orig­i­nal California trees.”

For the pro­duc­ers behind Olivaia, this year’s awards at the NYIOOC come as a wel­come con­clu­sion to a try­ing year, though Zavolta said that he is already count­ing down the days to the next har­vest.

“With a low amount of olives on the trees and all of our olives being hand-har­vested it made for a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion from a labor point of view,” he said. ​“Getting folks moti­vated to pick light set trees and arrive at an equi­table pick­ing cost was a real chal­lenge.”

“We hope [these awards] will bring atten­tion to our unique story and give us more of an oppor­tu­nity to talk about our extra vir­gin olive oil and how well it pairs with food,” Zavolta added.

A lit­tle bit more than 300 kilo­me­tres north of the California bor­der, the pro­duc­ers behind Durant Olive Mill cel­e­brated yet another suc­cess at the World Olive Oil Competition.

“I was very stoked [about receiv­ing the three Gold Awards and aSilver Award],” Paul Durant told Olive Oil Times. ​“As I have con­tin­ued to become a bet­ter miller and under­stand the nuances of pro­cess­ing really good extra vir­gin olive oil, I place ever-higher expec­ta­tions on myself and my milling team. Every year we should make bet­ter olive oil.”

As the largest pro­ducer in Oregon and owner of the state’s only mill, Durant is fre­quently asked what sets Oregonian olive oils apart from those of his south­ern neigh­bor. While he is still search­ing for the answer, sea­son after sea­son, he believes the cli­mate plays a big part.

“I do believe the nature of our grow­ing sea­son has more influ­ence than we under­stand,” he said. ​“We have cool nights. The days are much longer here in the north­ern lat­i­tudes than in a tra­di­tional Mediterranean cli­mate dur­ing the sum­mer.”

“Also, our bloom is late in spring com­pared to other loca­tions, hence our ripen­ing time­line is com­pletely unique,” he added. ​“The other aspect is the oil tex­ture or vis­cos­ity. Our Oregon-grown fruit seems to pro­duce oil that has a more exten­sive mouth feel and lingers longer across the pal­let than some other oils.”

For a pro­ducer based in a non-tra­di­tional olive grow­ing region, Durant said the awards from the NYIOOC have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on his brand over the past seven years.

“I view these awards much like I view wine scores,” he said. ​“All millers (or wine­mak­ers) claim to make excel­lent prod­ucts. However, to have a high wine score or award-win­ning olive oil is a third-party val­i­da­tion of that claim.”

“I have come to appre­ci­ate that this is very impor­tant to con­sumers and really helps to back up what we say about care and qual­ity of our olive oils,” Durant con­cluded.