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Challenging Season, Winning Results for California Producers

California producers overcame weather and labor challenges to triumph at the 2025 NYIOOC, showcasing their resilience, dedication and innovation.

California extra virgin olive oil producers earned 81 awards at the 2025 NYIOOC. (Photo: Rancho Milagro).
By Ofeoritse Daibo
Jun. 19, 2025 15:26 UTC
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California extra virgin olive oil producers earned 81 awards at the 2025 NYIOOC. (Photo: Rancho Milagro).
Summary Summary

California pro­duc­ers over­came chal­lenges such as unpre­dictable weather and increas­ing labor costs to win 81 awards at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Producers like Nancy Frishberg and Elise Magistro adapted to per­sonal and indus­try chal­lenges, with Frishberg tak­ing on a new role after her part­ner’s pass­ing and Magistro focus­ing on blends to express her expe­ri­ence at Luretík Estate. Additionally, Richard and Myrna Meisler of San Miguel Olive Farm cel­e­brated a ninth straight year of suc­cess at NYIOOC, show­cas­ing California’s resilience and ded­i­ca­tion in the olive oil indus­try despite fac­ing upcom­ing wild­fire risks.

After a sea­son of unpre­dictable weather and increas­ing labor costs, pro­duc­ers in California had rea­son to cel­e­brate, win­ning 81 awards at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition

Farmers, millers and bot­tlers in the Golden State, which is respon­si­ble for vir­tu­ally all of the esti­mated 10,000 met­ric tons of United States olive oil pro­duc­tion in the 2024/25 crop year, over­came high tem­per­a­tures at key moments of olive devel­op­ment, the emer­gence of the olive fruit fly and logis­ti­cal chal­lenges through­out the har­vest.

While cli­matic and eco­nomic chal­lenges are ever-present in a producer’s mis­sion to craft world-class extra vir­gin olive oil, some entrants faced more per­sonal tri­als and tribu­la­tions.

The steady pres­ence of California oils at NYIOOC is shift­ing how the world views our pro­duc­ers.- Elise Magistro, owner, Luretík Estate

For Nancy Frishberg of Rancho Milagro, this year’s har­vest was par­tic­u­larly emo­tional. Her part­ner, who had man­aged the ranch since its incep­tion, passed away unex­pect­edly in October.

He was only 75 and had a lot of things to accom­plish,” Frishberg said. And then, you know, he was gone.” 

The loss left Frishberg in charge of the oper­a­tion, which she had never antic­i­pated. This is my first year of being the man­ager of the har­vest,” she said. I’ve had to learn the ropes, but I think I’ve done okay.”

See Also:The best extra vigin olive oil from the U.S.

The past year also brought rain dur­ing har­vest, forc­ing pro­duc­ers to adjust their sched­ules. Additionally, extreme sum­mer heat, reach­ing 109°F (43°C), posed chal­lenges for the olive trees. 

We had some really, really hot days last sum­mer. It got to 109ºF when we left. That was excep­tion­ally high, I thought, for this part of California,” Frishberg said.

Her back­ground is in mar­ket­ing and lin­guis­tics, a stark con­trast to the agri­cul­tural exper­tise her late part­ner brought to Rancho Milagro.

Nancy Frishberg and her late partner (Photo: Rancho Milagro)

I was an aca­d­e­mic. I have a Ph.D. in lin­guis­tics, spe­cial­iz­ing in sign lan­guages,” she said. Then I spent years in tech, work­ing in user expe­ri­ence and human-com­puter inter­ac­tion. None of that had any­thing to do with olive oil.” 

Despite the steep learn­ing curve, she embraced the chal­lenge, hir­ing a con­sul­tant to refine their olive oil blends. 

I said to her, Here’s what I know about what’s in these bar­rels. Put together a blend for me that rep­re­sents our ranch and that uses as much of those three other vari­eties as pos­si­ble.’ And she did that. And it’s been win­ning awards,” Frishberg said.

Among them was the NYIOOC Gold Award for its medium-inten­sity Frantoio mono­va­ri­etal. Additionally, the ranch’s Field Blend of Frantoio, Hojiblanca, Coratina, and Picual olives received a Silver Award.

The shift from oppor­tunis­tic blend­ing to inten­tional blend­ing proved to be a game-changer. 

I needed to have some­body to help me on the blend. This is the key dif­fer­ence between the oppor­tunis­tic blend and the inten­tional blend,” Fishber said.

Rancho Milagro earned a Gold and Silver Award at the 2025 edition of the World Competition. (Photo: Rancho Milagro)

For Elise Magistro, owner of Luretík Estate, win­ning at NYIOOC was a pow­er­ful val­i­da­tion of her team’s com­mit­ment to qual­ity. 

Winning in New York con­firms the rig­or­ous stan­dards we hold our­selves to, from the grove to the bot­tle,” she said. We see it not only as recog­ni­tion of our work but as a sig­nal to our grow­ing com­mu­nity of cus­tomers and col­lab­o­ra­tors that Luretík deliv­ers a truly world-class extra vir­gin olive oil expe­ri­ence.”

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Magistro added that the NYIOOC award increases cus­tomer aware­ness and has improved the brand’s pres­ence in retail, culi­nary and hos­pi­tal­ity chan­nels.

It also affirms our for­ward-look­ing work: blend­ing vari­eties for com­plex­ity and bal­ance, invest­ing in sus­tain­abil­ity at the grove level, and build­ing new for­mats like micro-batch bot­tlings and curated sen­sory expe­ri­ences,” she said.

Magistro also high­lighted how California’s suc­cess at NYIOOC is reshap­ing global per­cep­tions of the region’s olive oil. 

The steady pres­ence of California oils at NYIOOC is shift­ing how the world views our pro­duc­ers,” she said. Luretík is part of that evo­lu­tion here on the Central Coast. We’re for­tu­nate to grow in Santa Barbara County, which enjoys a Mediterranean-like micro­cli­mate where our Italian cul­ti­vars thrive and give us a diverse palette for craft­ing nuanced blends.”

Rather than focus­ing on mono­va­ri­etals, Magistro said she pro­duces blends to express her expe­ri­ence at Luretík. 

From the out­set, it has been impor­tant for me to craft oils that reflect who I am and where I come from,” Magistro said. Our approach is rooted in cre­at­ing blends that are delib­er­ate com­po­si­tions rather than a California ver­sion of an Italian mono­va­ri­etal oil.”

The 2024/25 har­vest yielded slightly lower results com­pared to California’s stand­out 2023/24 sea­son, but pro­duc­ers observed high har­mony scores, ele­vated phe­nols, and com­plex aro­mas in cer­tain vari­eties. 

We made strate­gic adjust­ments dur­ing har­vest tim­ing as well as in post-har­vest blend­ing, deci­sions which paid off: the result was a gold medal oil that exem­pli­fies both pre­ci­sion and adapt­abil­ity,” Magistro said.

However, she high­lighted logis­ti­cal chal­lenges of scal­ing pro­duc­tion. Ensuring rapid trans­port to our organic-cer­ti­fied milling part­ner is crit­i­cal to pre­serv­ing fruit integrity, and we’ve been dis­ci­plined about main­tain­ing that 12 to 24-hour win­dow,” Magistro said.

We’re also devel­op­ing long-term part­ner­ships to bring milling closer to the grove, part of a broader invest­ment in regen­er­a­tive and oper­a­tional resilience,” she added.

Looking ahead, Magistro remains opti­mistic about the 2025/26 har­vest, not­ing steady bud­ding across nine vari­eties and favor­able spring weather sup­port­ing opti­mal flow­er­ing con­di­tions.

We’re con­tin­u­ing to deepen our bio­di­verse prac­tices and expand grove capac­ity, lay­ing the ground­work for future growth in both vol­ume and inno­va­tion, like micro-lots and cli­mate-respon­sive cul­ti­va­tion.”

Meanwhile, in the hills of San Miguel, known for its Mediterranean cli­mate and rich agri­cul­tural her­itage, Richard and Myrna Meisler of San Miguel Olive Farm also cel­e­brated a tri­umphant sea­son.

Richard and Myrna Meisler started San Miguel Olive Farm in their 60s. (Photo: San Miguel Olive Farm)

The cou­ple, aged 86 and 87, started their farm in 2006 with only ten trees. Nestled in the Central Coast’s rolling hills, the peren­nial win­ners cel­e­brated a ninth straight year of suc­cess at the NYIOOC.

We are also very proud to have received four Gold Awards for our endeav­ors this year,” they said. The acco­lades rein­force their unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to qual­ity and sus­tain­abil­ity.”

Their suc­cess, along­side other pro­duc­ers, high­lights the resilience and ded­i­ca­tion of California’s olive oil indus­try. We both feel Californians are known for fac­ing chal­lenges well and mov­ing for­ward,” they said.

Looking ahead, California pro­duc­ers are brac­ing for another active wild­fire sea­son. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, more than 2,000 fires have burned approx­i­mately 30,000 hectares as of 2025. 

While olive grow­ers have expe­ri­enced lim­ited expo­sure, smoke has not been shown to affect olive oil qual­ity; how­ever, they con­tinue to mon­i­tor envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions closely

At Rancho Milagro, the ranch man­ager only mulches prun­ing left­overs while brief rains con­tinue — once the heat sets in, fire dan­ger makes such prac­tices too risky.

We haven’t had a fire in this part of California since 2021… But start­ing soon, it will be the dry sea­son,” Frishberg said. And by the time August comes around and September, that gets to be iffy because there’s lots of fire dan­ger.”


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