`U.S. Producers Win 37 Awards at International Olive Oil Competition - Olive Oil Times

U.S. Producers Win 37 Awards at International Olive Oil Competition

By Nancy Flagg
Apr. 16, 2014 21:40 UTC

Two California olive oil pro­duc­ers won the first American Best in Class’ awards at the 2014 New York International Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC). Winners of the com­pe­ti­tion were announced at a press con­fer­ence on April 10.

Among the award win­ners, The Olive Press and Enzo Olive Oil Company each took home Best in Class’ des­ig­na­tions — the first top awards for the United States plac­ing the coun­try in good com­pany with leader Italy who won five of the top awards and Spain and Australia who won three each.
See Also:The World’s Best Olive Oils for 2014
California pro­duc­ers accounted for most of the 37 U.S. medals, but Texas, Oregon and Georgia con­tributed to the total by earn­ing their first NYIOOC awards.

This year, the NYIOOC shared the judg­ing pan­el’s remarks about each of the win­ning oils. The judges described The Olive Press medium-inten­sity Picual as hav­ing aro­mas of green fruit, green grass, apple, red fruit and notes of fig leaf, chamomile, euca­lyp­tus, flow­ers, herbs.”

For Enzo Delicate Arbequina, the judges noted abun­dant fruiti­ness, green grass, sweet­ness, some bit­ter­ness, light pun­gency and notes of almond, pep­per, with excep­tional har­mony, a high com­plex­ity and a high per­sis­tence.”

Vincent Ricchiuti of the Enzo Olive Oil Company said that he and his fam­ily were very excited to hear about their award. He noted that although the com­pany has won 17 awards in the last year, they had not won at the New York International and it was very spe­cial to get the recog­ni­tion of such a pres­ti­gious award.” Ricchiuti cred­its the qual­ity of his oil to being 100 per­cent cer­ti­fied organic EVOO and 100 per­cent estate-grown. We are able to con­trol every­thing from plant­ing to bot­tling, and this is the big rea­son we are able to con­trol qual­ity.”

The win­ning California pro­duc­ers and the awards won are shown below. More infor­ma­tion on the win­ners can be found at bestoliveoils.org.

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