`Seville Hosts 8th Armonia Competition - Olive Oil Times

Seville Hosts 8th Armonia Competition

By Luciana Squadrilli
Jun. 9, 2014 13:18 UTC
Blas Melgarejo (right) accepts an award in the del­i­cate fruity” cat­e­gory for his Composicion extra vir­gin olive oil.

Despite the dif­fi­cult har­vest and the poor eco­nomic and trad­ing trends, this has been a very good year for Italian extra vir­gin olive oil, which raked up a lot of awards and recog­ni­tion at national and inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions.

It was no excep­tion at the 8th edi­tion of the International Olive Oil Competition Armonia — Trofeo IRVEA held by the Italian Institute for Research and Promotion of Food and Agriculture Excellence. A panel of Italian and Spanish judges declared the win­ners in Sevilla, award­ing top extra vir­gin olive oil, pack­ag­ing and design.

Italy won 5 out of the 6 awards for the best extra vir­gin olive oils in the three dif­fer­ent fruity cat­e­gories: in the first place for the Delicate there was the Tuscany Organic PGI by Il Pino while in the sec­ond place there was the Diana extra vir­gin by the Agricola Diana farm from Calabria; for the Medium cat­e­gory, the win­ner was the Cilento PDO made by the Marsicani farm in Campania, fol­lowed by La Vecchia Macina made by the Apulian farm Agrolio; for the Robust Fruity cat­e­gory, in the first place there was the Morgan Oil made by the Slovenian Ekoloska Kmetija Morgan fol­lowed by the Don Gioacchino Terra de’ Donno made by the Apulian farm Agricola Leone Sabino.

The awarded extra vir­gin olive oils were also used by the com­peti­tors of the Harmony in the Kitchen” — a cook­ing con­test orga­nized by the IRVEA and the International Olive Oil Agency as a part of the Oleum Sapiens project. The con­test aimed to pro­mote the use of the extra vir­gin olive oils in com­bi­na­tion with other excel­lent food prod­ucts in restau­rants as well as in cater­ing and hos­pi­tal­ity train­ing insti­tutes through­out Italy.

The young stu­dents of the Hotel Institutes par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion faced them­selves with imag­i­na­tive recipes match­ing the win­ning oils with Italian rice. They had to cre­ate an orig­i­nal recipe using the win­ning olive oils and the Acquerello, har­vested and packed by the Rondolino fam­ily in Piedmont, who was a spon­sor of this year’s event.

The first prize went to Francesco D’Aversa, attend­ing the Sergio Ronco Gastronomy and Hospitality Institute, who pre­pared fen­nel and orange cook­ies with EVOO foam and rice ganache. Second prize went to Andrea Brugnetti attend­ing the L. Einaudi Institute, and to his mack­erel roll with Acquerello rice and red shrimp with cro­quette and raw cele­riac while the third prize went to Andrea Moschini – also attend­ing the Sergio Ronco Gastronomy and Hospitality Institute – and his Rice and vio­let ice cream with husk and car­damom cookie.

The win­ners also gained a train­ing stay at the London-based restau­rant Fifteen London by Jamie Oliver, the English chef keen on the themes of healthy food edu­ca­tion.

Find the com­plete list of the awarded extra vir­gin olive oils here.


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