`Italy Triumphs at New York International Olive Oil Competition - Olive Oil Times
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Italy Triumphs at New York International Olive Oil Competition

By Luciana Squadrilli
Apr. 26, 2013 11:32 UTC


Frantoio Franci

Italian extra vir­gin is a catch-all at the inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion in New York, win­ning 87 awards out of the 232 given to the Northern Hemisphere and the 261 over­all.

The much-pub­li­cized first edi­tion of the New York International Olive Oil Competition was a big suc­cess in itself and prob­a­bly set a new stan­dard for inter­na­tional olive oil com­pe­ti­tions and awards, and it was cer­tainly a great achieve­ment for Italian extra vir­gin.

Italy was the most award-win­ning coun­try at the com­pe­ti­tion, gain­ing the record num­ber of 87 medals, while Spain fol­lowed with 45 and the United States gath­ered 33 awards.

Among the 87 awarded Italian prod­ucts, 8 won the ​“Best of Class” medal for the dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of the Northern Hemisphere, and a very sat­is­fy­ing 53 won a Gold Awards, while 26 won a Silver. Winning oils came from dif­fer­ent areas of Italy, with many rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the famous regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio and Sicily.

Frantoio Franci, with the excel­lent score of 9.60, won the Best of Class Award for the Robust Blend cat­e­gory. A blend of Frantoio ​“Correggiolo” (50 per­cent, a local sub­va­ri­ety), Moraiolo (35 per­cent) and Leccino (15 per­cent) vari­eties, it has an ele­gant and intense aroma with arti­choke and roasted cof­fee notes.

It has been a golden year for Villa Magra, which also won many other national and inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions such as the SOL d’Oro, the Joop – Japan Olive Oil Prize and a sil­ver medal at the Ercole Olivario com­pe­ti­tion in Italy.

The fam­ily-owned com­pany from Tuscany also won a sec­ond award in New York with the IGP Toscano olive oil – a less com­plex yet very good prod­uct with fresh grass and fruity notes and a light tomato scent – that was awarded as Best of Class for the Medium Blend cat­e­gory, and a third – a Gold Medal – for its Olivastra Seggianese in the Delicate Monovarietal cat­e­gory.

Giorgio Franci, who leads the com­pany together with his father Ferdinando, is very happy for the result and he is firmly con­vinced that the New York Competition will become an essen­tial ref­er­ence for all the buy­ers and con­sumers who really care about high qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil.


Olio Reserva by Domenica Fiore obtained the high­est score at the New York com­pe­ti­tion.

Olio Reserva by Domenica Fiore Company won the Best of Class award for the Organic Medium Blend cat­e­gory. It is a golden green oil, robust and full-bod­ied, and it comes in the spe­cial 18/10 stain­less steel bot­tles inspired by the ideas of Marco Mugelli, the founder of National Association of Olive Oil Tasters (ANAPOO), to pre­serve olive oil’s nutri­tional and fla­vor char­ac­ter­is­tics.

The Tenuta Torre Di Mossa by De Carlo com­pany from Apulia won the Best of Class award for the Robust Monovarietal cat­e­gory, being an intensely pun­gent and bit­ter yet bal­anced olive oil obtained from the local vari­ety Coratina.

Best of Class award in the Organic Robust Monovarietal cat­e­gory went to the Torre Bianca Frantoio by the Torre Bianca Farm, from Tuscany again, with its very sharp smell of fresh greens. La Montagnola’s Minerva (a beau­ti­ful farm­house in Umbria, which also offer nice rus­tic accom­mo­da­tions, yoga classes and olive oil tast­ing sem­i­nars) won the Best of Class award for the Delicate Monovarietal Category.

For the Delicate Category, the organic extra vir­gin by Tenuta San Jacopo (a beau­ti­ful farm­house in Tuscany, again, also pro­duc­ing wines and spir­its) was awarded as Best of Class Organic Blend while the Best of Class Award for tra­di­tional Blend went to the Olevano Delicate extra vir­gin by Consorzio Olivicolo del Tusciano, which also won the Gold Metal for the Robust Blend Category with its Olevano Intense oil.

This com­pany was actu­ally born by the twin­ning and rela­tion­ship between Wilmington, DE USA, and the small vil­lage of Olevano Sul Tusciano, in Southern Italy. Over the cen­turies, many Olevanese emi­grated to the US but their descen­dants con­tin­ued to com­mu­ni­cate and strengthen the trans-Atlantic rela­tion­ship with their Italian cousins, until in 2003 the two cities were offi­cially declared as Sister Cities of the International Organization. Extra vir­gin olive oil is only one of the Italian prod­ucts com­ing from their home­land that they decided to import to the US.

The panel leader Gino Celletti was very proud of the Italian results, but espe­cially of the jurors’ job: ​“It was one of the broad­est and most qual­i­fied panel that has ever been made, and they all did extremely well,” he said.

The other win­ning olive oils from Italy are below. The full list of win­ners can be found at the Best Olive Oils web­site.

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