World's Best Olive Oils for 2016 Announced

Summary

Curtis Cord announced the best olive oils for 2016 at the NYIOOC in New York City, with Italy, Spain, and the United States tak­ing the top spots. The event also intro­duced a new Olive Oil Sommelier Certification Program and a Best New Olive Oils Marketplace to help pro­mote and sell the win­ning oils to a larger audi­ence.

Curtis Cord, pres­i­dent of the New York International Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC), announced the best olive oils in the world for 2016 at a press con­fer­ence packed with over 200 olive oil pro­duc­ers retail­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, chefs and jour­nal­ists from around the world in New York City this evening.

The crowded audi­ence was abuzz with antic­i­pa­tion, nerves and excite­ment. One pro­ducer said she was nearly in tears. ​“My boss told me not to come home unless I win,” she said. Viewers from around the world, who watched the live-streamed broad­cast online, joined the New York crowd, wait­ing for the results.

Cord was flanked by the NYIOOC panel of judges, com­prised of 15 top tasters from every region of the globe, and led by Carola Dümmer Medina, Fernando Martínez Román, and Konstantinos Liris. After metic­u­lously tast­ing and eval­u­at­ing over 820 oils from 26 coun­tries — the largest inter­na­tional col­lec­tion of olive oils ever assem­bled — over four intense days, the win­ners were decided. At 6:00 pm EDT on April 14, the news was revealed to the world.

“Making high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil has always been a demand­ing task,” Cord told the audi­ence. ​“Past suc­cesses do not guar­an­tee that pro­duc­ers will craft a win­ning oil this time.”

“Unlike wine,” Cord said, ​“an excel­lent vin­tage for extra vir­gin olive oil lasts but one year, with each new sea­son forc­ing farm­ers and millers to earn their met­tle again, to face a new set of chal­lenges in their quest to pro­duce a juice with­out defects, and cap­ture the fleet­ing qual­i­ties of healthy fruit.”

Despite the many chal­lenges, 314 pro­duc­ers took home awards, an over­all suc­cess rate of 38 per­cent. Italy won 109 awards, over­tak­ing last year’s top win­ner, Spain, who racked up 78 wins, a strong sec­ond. The United States came in third place with 50.

Portugal and Greece tied for fourth place, with 20 awards each. 180 Greek brands sub­mit­ted olive oils this year, and only 11 per­cent placed in the com­pe­ti­tion, a show­ing that will ​“no doubt lead many to take a hard look at their pro­duc­tion processes,” accord­ing to Cord. New Zealand and Australia fared well, win­ning about half of their entries. 9 of 16 Croatian brands took home awards.

Cord intro­duced Dorothy Cann Hamilton, founder and CEO of the International Culinary Center, and announced a new ini­tia­tive there. The forth­com­ing Olive Oil Sommelier Certification Program will bring the world’s fore­most olive oil experts and edu­ca­tors to New York for a com­pre­hen­sive series of courses on olive oil pro­duc­tion, qual­ity man­age­ment and sen­sory analy­sis. ​“I want to con­grat­u­late every­one who is here today,” Hamilton said. ​“You are the pio­neer­ing group for olive oil, which is going to take on the world. This is a grow­ing move­ment and this is just the begin­ning.”

As win­ners ascended the stage to col­lect their sleek NYIOOC tro­phies, lively chat­ter, enthu­si­as­tic applause and the occa­sional cheer erupted in the cap­ti­vated crowd. (The ner­vous pro­ducer took home an award, so she can breathe easy, as can her boss.)

In the four years since the NYIOOC began, the win­ning olive oils have proven to be highly val­ued by chefs, food buy­ers and dis­cern­ing con­sumers every­where who seek the very high­est qual­ity in extra vir­gin olive oil. The NYIOOC has always ​“aspired not only to iden­tify the word’s best olive oils, but to develop inno­v­a­tive ways to get them into kitchens where they right­fully deserve to be,” Cord said.

All of New York International Olive Oil Competition win­ners are pre­sented on the web­site bestoliveoils.org. For the first time, the Best New Olive Oils Marketplace, which is set to launch in the upcom­ing weeks, will allow enthu­si­asts to buy the win­ning oils on the same web­site. ​“We will help sell­ers of these high-qual­ity prod­ucts reach a much larger audi­ence — and that lies at the very heart of our mis­sion,” said Cord.