The best extra vir­gin olive oils for 2019 were revealed tonight in New York.

Curtis Cord, the Olive Oil Times pub­lisher and pres­i­dent of the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, pro­vided an overview of this year’s con­test to a packed room of 200 jour­nal­ists, olive oil pro­duc­ers and food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, and an esti­mated 10,500 who watched the live stream of the event.

In a year that saw a dra­mat­i­cally reduced out­put in some tra­di­tional regions, the find­ings of an 18-mem­ber panel of expert tasters sug­gested there is no short­age of excel­lent olive oils to go around. In fact, the num­ber of award win­ners set an all-time record.

“There were farm­ers who told us this year they sim­ply had no olives — that their trees suc­cumbed to deep freezes, drought and other calami­ties,” Cord told the crowd. ​“And, there were some who had their best har­vest in years.”

There were 552 awarded brands from 23 coun­tries among the more than 900 entries, Cord revealed. The high suc­cess rate con­tin­ued a trend among qual­ity-minded olive oil pro­duc­ers through­out the world who aim to dis­tin­guish their brands from the pack.

​“The record-break­ing 552 award win­ners sug­gests that more pro­duc­ers know how win­ning oils should taste and have devel­oped the skills to craft them,” said Cord. ​“And those who have man­aged to craft excel­lence are more often able to repeat their suc­cess.”

Producers from Italy sub­mit­ted the most entries with 223, fol­lowed by Spain with 154, Greece with 109, the United States with 96, Portugal with 67, Croatia with 61 and Tunisia with 30. There were entries from Australia, Brazil, Turkey, Chile, Slovenia, France, Japan, China, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Uruguay, Algeria, Cyprus and Israel.

The win­ningest coun­try was Italy, with 152 awards, fol­lowed closely by Spain with 93, the United States with 75 and Greece with 55 awards. ​“More than ever before, we are see­ing the tremen­dous efforts by pro­duc­ers around the world result in excep­tional oils for us to choose,” Cord said, before call­ing some of the pro­duc­ers in atten­dance to the stage to accept their awards.

“This is so spe­cial,” said Richard Meisler of San Miguel Olive Farm, who received two Gold Awards for his Tuscan Gold Eleganza and Tuscan Gold Supremo blends. ​“This is one of the high­lights of my life.”

“This is for all the hard-work­ing peo­ple in Solta!” said Mirjana Kanzler, rep­re­sent­ing the Best in Class Award win­ner, Zlatna Šoltanka.

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition is the largest olive oil qual­ity con­test and its annual list­ing of award win­ners is widely con­sid­ered the most trusted guide to the year’s best extra vir­gin olive oils.

Award win­ners will be listed in the NYIOOC’s Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils and many will be avail­able through the Best Olive Oils Marketplace, the online por­tal where buy­ers can source the win­ning oils from retail­ers and dis­trib­u­tors who stock them.

This is a break­ing news arti­cle. Check back for updates.