Challenging Season, Winning Results for California Producers

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.

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.”

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.

“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.

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.”

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.

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.”