It’s a Great Time to Find High-Quality Olive Oils

At the New York International Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC) last week, 200 pro­duc­ers, retail­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, chefs and jour­nal­ists gath­ered in New York City to taste hun­dreds of award-win­ning extra-vir­gin olive oils and cel­e­brate the year’s best olive oils and the peo­ple who make them.

Producers cheered as they col­lected their hard-won tro­phies, and one thing became espe­cially clear dur­ing the evening: there are more high-qual­ity olive oil than ever before.

At the event, which one attendee called ​“olive oil’s Grammy Awards,” 463 oils were named the world’s best by a panel of expert judges from around the world, 149 more than last year.

The over­all suc­cess rate rose sharply from 38 per­cent last year to 51 per­cent this year, and there were more first-time con­tes­tants than ever before. Curtis Cord, founder of the NYIOOC and the pub­lisher of Olive Oil Times said, ​“This is the begin­ning of the sea change we have been wait­ing for. Our judg­ing panel’s metic­u­lous analy­sis has exposed a clear upward trend in qual­ity.“
See Also:The World’s Best Olive Oils for 2017
This suc­cess comes at the price of intense dis­ci­pline and exact­ing effort. ​“It’s a whole lot of hard work and a lot of effort to make some­thing that tastes as good as really good extra-vir­gin tastes,” says Alex Buli, whose Buli olive oil was pre­sented with a Gold Award. Buli is an aro­matic blend of Frantoio, Leccino, Pendolino and Moraiolo olives. ​“Like with any agri­cul­tural prod­uct, you’re always at the mercy of fac­tors that are out­side your con­trol, whether it’s the weather or pests,” Buli added.

Buli grew up in New York — he didn’t fall in love with olive oil until later in life. ​“It’s my father who made this hap­pen,” he explained. ​“My grand­mother, his mother, is from Tuscany. We got our farm about 30 kilo­me­ters east of Siena about ten years ago. It already had about 300 olive trees.” The grove’s loca­tion atop a hill meant a won­der­ful breeze. Many neigh­bor­ing farms had a tough har­vest this year because of the inva­sive olive fruit fly, but the Buli’s trees were spared. ​“We’re very for­tu­nate,” said Buli.

Making extra-vir­gin olive oil is not for the faint of heart. ​“Anyone who has ever vis­ited an olive grove or wit­nessed the pro­duc­tion of high-qual­ity olive oil knows the painstak­ing work, the every­day chal­lenges, and the count­less deci­sions that go into mak­ing this prod­uct,” Cord told the crowd at the NYIOOC press con­fer­ence.

“You’ll need the per­fect soil and cul­ti­vars, ones that thrive in your micro­cli­mate, the trees will take years before they bear fruit…you’ll need some rain but not too much, you’ll need to har­vest olives at just the right time.” From heat waves to pests to milling to equip­ment to bot­tling, there are count­less details and obsta­cles on the way to cre­at­ing a won­der­ful olive oil. The work is demand­ing and relent­less.
See Also:Buy This Year’s Award-Winning Oils
910 pro­duc­ers — more than ever before — sub­mit­ted oils to the NYIOOC, despite a dif­fi­cult har­vest sea­son that resulted in a 30 per­cent drop in global pro­duc­tion. Olive oils from 20 coun­tries received awards, up from last year’s 15, includ­ing pow­er­houses like Italy, Spain and Greece, and coun­tries includ­ing Slovenia, South Africa, Croatia, Uruguay, Morocco, Brazil, and China.

“There are now more top-qual­ity olive oils from more places than at any other time,” Cord announced. ​“The data from four days of tast­ings by the world’s most expe­ri­enced panel of sen­sory pan­elists over­whelm­ing proves that efforts to make great olive oil around the world are pay­ing off. Producers in every region have answered our call and lifted their game.”

As cus­tomers learn more, they appre­ci­ate and demeaned higher qual­ity olive oil. Standards are ris­ing, and pro­duc­ers are ris­ing to the chal­lenge. ​“It’s an honor to give olive oil the pres­tige it deserves,” said Rose Malindretos.

Malindretos rep­re­sents Olivier & Co, a French brand that works directly with pro­duc­ers to source olive oils from all over the Mediterranean. This year, their brands took home a Gold Award with their Monva — a robust Picual from the Sierra Magina nat­ural reserve in Spain, and a Silver for its Azienda Agricola Mascio blend (Last year their Il Fornacino Tuscan oil received a Gold Award.)

“As a brand, we’ve been in the US since 2000, and we’re one of the first to really give olive oil the trace­abil­ity it deserves. Olive oil has been around for thou­sands of years and it’s finally get­ting the respect and cred­i­bil­ity it deserves,” Malindretos said.

Buli’s oil was among the first-time sub­mis­sions, and he was excited by the good news and the com­radery at the NYIOOC.

“It’s an honor to be in the com­pany of so many great pro­duc­ers who share the same pas­sion,” Buli said. Perhaps we have even more incred­i­ble oils and award-win­ning pro­duc­ers to look for­ward to next year.