Award-Winning Producer Seeks to Craft Extra Virgin Olive Oil From Millenary Trees in Croatia

Summary

Croatian olive oil pro­duc­ers, par­tic­u­larly from Dalmatia, achieved unprece­dented suc­cess at the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, with plans to send mil­len­nial olive oils from Lun to the 2022 com­pe­ti­tion in hopes of show­cas­ing the unique qual­ity and health ben­e­fits of the region’s olive oils. The suc­cess at the com­pe­ti­tion has helped ele­vate the stand­ing of Croatian olive oils on the world stage, with a focus on pro­mot­ing lesser-known olive grow­ing regions such as the Croatian Littoral and the Dalmatian Hinterland.

The eupho­ria from the suc­cess of Dalmatian oils at the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition has not sub­sided yet, but pro­duc­ers are already prepar­ing another sur­prise for next year.

“I sug­gest that next year we send mil­len­nial olive oil to the world’s largest stage,” Ivica Vlatković, the pro­ducer behind OPG Vlatković, told sev­eral friends and an Olive Oil Times reporter.

This year, the doc­tor and award-win­ning pro­ducer earned two Gold Awards at the com­pe­ti­tion for a monocul­ti­var Šoltanka and a blend from Coratina and Leccino. It was the fifth year that Vlatković has been awarded at the NYIOOC.

Along with Tomislav Duvnjak, Vlatković is one of the dri­ving forces behind the unprece­dented suc­cess of pro­duc­ers from Croatia’s south­west­ern shore­lines and coastal islands at the World Competition.

Of the 105 extra vir­gin olive oil sam­ples sent from Croatia, 53 came from Dalmatia and 52 from Istria. At the pre­vi­ous edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion, only 12 sam­ples arrived in New York from Dalmatia, rep­re­sent­ing an increase of 75 per­cent.

Croatian oils won 66 Gold and 20 Silver Awards at the 2021 NYIOOC, with 36 Gold and 13 Silver Awards going to Dalmatian pro­duc­ers.

“We are the fourth in the world [in terms of NYIOOC awards],” Vlatković said. ​“Istria has con­firmed its rep­u­ta­tion, but we from Dalmatia have proven now that we have qual­ity too.”

He believes that appear­ances at the NYIOOC can help increase the stand­ing of all Croatian olive oils on the world stage. Away from Istria and Dalmatia, the two most sig­nif­i­cant olive grow­ing regions, the Croatian Littoral and the Dalmatian Hinterland are also home to olive oil pro­duc­ers.

Stretching for about 150 kilo­me­ters and com­pris­ing more than 1,000 islands, the Croatian Littoral is sand­wiched between Istria and Dalmatia.

On the island of Pag, known for its famous sheep cheese, the north­ern Lun penin­sula is home to more than 80,000 trees of the indige­nous Oblica vari­ety, which cover an area of 400 hectares.

Of these trees, 1,500 stand out in par­tic­u­lar, as they are sus­pected of being the old­est known wild olive trees in exis­tence, includ­ing one that is at least 2,000 years old.

Despite this dis­tinc­tion, Vlatković said that Lun and its his­tor­i­cal olive trees remain less well known than they should be out­side of Croatia.

In order to change this and turn Lun into a uni­ver­sally rec­og­nized olive grow­ing ter­roir, Vlatković hopes to send olive oils har­vested from its mil­lenary groves to the 2022 NYIOOC.

If the oils were to be awarded, Vlatković said this would con­vince the world of the island’s qual­ity and estab­lish the mil­lenary groves of Lun as a cul­tural asset. It would also help pro­mote other wild olive groves on the Kvarner islands, Hvar, Lastovo, Pelješac and Kornati.

However, there will be chal­lenges involved in pro­duc­ing award-win­ning olive oil from Lun’s mil­lenary trees. The fruit from the trees is small, so 15 to 20 kilo­grams of olives must be har­vested to yield one kilo­gram of oil.

Despite the pro­duc­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, Vlatković said olive oils from Lun are unique as a result of the peninsula’s ter­roir and boast plen­ti­ful health ben­e­fits. He hopes to prove this to the inter­na­tional panel of judges at the World Olive Oil Competition next year.