Small Croatian Town Already Boasts Four 2025 NYIOOC Winners

Summary

Croatian olive grow­ers are cel­e­brat­ing their suc­cess­ful start at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, with seven Gold and two Silver Awards already earned in the open­ing days of the event. The win­ning farm­ers, includ­ing Ante Vulin, Tomislav Čudina, Sebastijan Adžić, and Slavo Stojanov, are proud of their achieve­ments and moti­vated to con­tinue improv­ing their olive grow­ing prac­tices for the future.

Croatian olive grow­ers are not hid­ing their sat­is­fac­tion with their suc­cess­ful start at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

In the open­ing days of the world’s largest annual olive oil qual­ity assess­ment, Croatian pro­duc­ers have already earned seven Gold and two Silver Awards. Overall, Croatian farm­ers and millers com­bined to sub­mit a record-high 132 entries.

Croatia’s first four Gold Awards were won by Ante Vulin, Tomislav Čudina, Sebastijan Adžić and Slavo Stojanov, olive grow­ers from a pic­turesque Dalmatian town located in the cen­ter of the Adriatic coast with a unique posi­tion between the sea and Lake Vrana, Croatia’s largest lake.

“Let’s cel­e­brate with cham­pagne. We are happy to con­tribute to the suc­cess of our coun­try,” said Vulin, who grows around 1,100 olive trees with his fam­ily, 550 of which are at peak pro­duc­tiv­ity.

For the fourth year in a row, Vulin was awarded for his Antino brand, a medium Oblica with arti­choke, green almond, arugula and tea notes.

Tomislav Čudina, one of the younger olive grow­ers from Pakoštane, is also pleased.

“This suc­cess means a lot to me. It moti­vates me to take olive grow­ing even more seri­ously,” he said after receiv­ing this sec­ond NYIOOC award for his Olea Viola brand, a medium blend.

He started olive grow­ing in 2002. ​“I inher­ited the land from my grand­fa­ther Blaž and planted the first 61 trees,” Čudina said.

He con­tin­ued to buy land and planted 240 more olive trees. Čudina added that he intends to grow another 500 Oblica, Levantinka, Plavica, Pendolino, Leccino and Frantoio trees in the future.

The third Pakoštane olive grower who won a Gold Award for the first time in New York this year is

Sebastijan Adžić, a Croatian War of Independence vet­eran who lost his leg in com­bat, was the third Pakoštane olive grower to win a Gold Award at the NYIOOC.

The owner of the caterer and olive oil pro­ducer, Leut Grupa, earned the award for an organic medium-inten­sity blend.

Slavo Stojanov, owner of OPG Didini Dvori Agroturizam Plavica, cel­e­brated the fourth NYIOOC Gold Award for Pakoštane olive farm­ers.

“Every drop of our oil reflects the love for olive grow­ing and ded­i­ca­tion to qual­ity. We are proud of our cham­pion prod­ucts,” he said.

Stojanov earned the award for his Plavica brand, a medium-inten­sity Oblica mono­va­ri­etal.

Along with the four win­ning farm­ers, sev­eral other olive grow­ers from Pakoštan sent the sam­ples of their extra vir­gin olive oils to the com­pe­ti­tion in New York.

Additionally, the orga­niz­ers have extended the entry reg­is­tra­tion period until March 15^th, open­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of more sam­ples from the munic­i­pal­ity home to 4,100 peo­ple.

Away from Pakoštan, the hus­band and wife team of Beetrix and Rudolf Nemetsche have also won three Gold Awards. The own­ers of Avistria cul­ti­vate 4,800 olive trees in Sveti Lovreč, Istria, and have a long his­tory of suc­cess at the com­pe­ti­tion.

In Dalmatia, the Šonjić Family also won a Silver Award for its medium blend of Oblica, Coratina, Leccino, Frantoio, Pendolino and Istarska Bjelica olives.

“We’re off to a good start. We need to con­tinue like this,” Vulin said.

Since a coor­di­nated effort to increase Croatian par­tic­i­pa­tion in 2021, the coun­try of 3.8 mil­lion peo­ple has become one of the most suc­cess­ful in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Croatian farm­ers and millers com­bined to win 80 awards from 97 entries last year, down from the record-high 105 awards from 131 entries the year before. Since 2023, only Italian and Spanish pro­duc­ers have earned more NYIOOC acco­lades.

As results are announced almost daily, Croatian olive oil pro­duc­ers will care­fully fol­low the news to deter­mine if they will add their names to the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils.

“This [method of judg­ing] proved a com­plete suc­cess,” Vulin said. ​“Olive grow­ers learn the results in real time, the global media pub­lish every­thing, and so every­one inter­ested in olive oil gains valu­able infor­ma­tion.”

“[As more results are announced,] we finally find out who won how many medals and what rank­ing our olive grow­ers, as well as olive grow­ers from all other coun­tries in the Northern Hemisphere par­tic­i­pat­ing in this pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tion, will achieve,” he con­cluded. ​“We hope for the best.”