The competition led by Antonio G. Lauro received a record-high 704 entries, including 80 flavored oils.

Writer: Ylenia Granitto

With a record participation of 704 entries, including 80 flavored oils, the sixth EVO International Olive Oil Contest (EVO-IOOC) concluded with an awards event in Palmi.

The picturesque city on Calabria’s Violet Coast welcomed judges from several countries, including Canada, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, to taste the samples in person once again after the previous edition had to be held remotely.

“From the early stage of planning, I truly hoped I could reunite our international panel here in Palmi,” Antonio G. Lauro, the competition’s president, told Olive Oil Times.

See Also:Olive Oil Competitions

“And not because in-person tastings are better than online ones, but because we all felt the need to shake the dust off our glasses, meet up again and return to discuss and work shoulder-to-shoulder, always in the best interest of all the farmers that have entrusted us with their ‘family jewels,’ ” he added.

Olive oils and condiments were assessed during four days of tastings at the CapoSperone Resort facilities, adequately set up to comply with Covid-19 regulations.

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“This record edition proves that the producers are more committed than ever to pursuing quality,” Lauro said.

Along with the managing director Stefania Reggio, he presented the recipients of gold and silver medals and other awards (best international, best in class, best of country and special awards) from a mobile studio located in the city center. The ceremony was live-streamed on the EVO-IOOC social pages and local television.

In the Northern Hemisphere, producers from Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal reached the highest echelons of the podium, and several prizes also went to entrants from Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon.

“We are very happy with this recognition that repays all our efforts,” Cesare Bianchini, the producer behind Domenica Fiore, said after receiving the Best International North Hemisphere award for his Novello di Notte.

“This has been a great season since, in addition to quality, we also had good volumes,” the Umbrian farmer said. “Every year, we strive to produce higher quality. Last year, we were helped by favorable climate conditions; our commitment and the hard work in the olive grove did the rest.”

Producers from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru stood out among the entrants from the Southern Hemisphere.

“Receiving this award is a great honor for us that justifies all our hard work year after year, and especially in the last harvest,” said Rafael Marchetti of Prosperato, who received the Best International Southern Hemisphere award for a Picual monovarietal.

“We had a much bigger amount of olives than we were expecting, at least three times more compared to last year, and the climate helped too,” he added. “At our mill, we provide extraction and bottling services for other producers, and for the first time, we received more olives from others than from our groves. That just proves how the olive trees are taking their space and growing well in Rio Grande do Sul.”

The event program also included a masterclass held by Lauro, who conducted a tasting session with some award-winning products. The event will soon be repeated elsewhere in Italy, Greece and other countries, as part of a series of promotional activities implemented by the competition.

All the competition winners may be found on the EVO-IOOC website and the paper guide EVO-IOOC Buyers Edition 2021/22, which is published in English and Italian.

Italian and Spanish producers were among the big winners at the EVO International Olive Oil Contest.

Writer: Ylenia Granitto

A record number of prizes were handed out at the 2020 EVO International Olive Oil Contest (EVO-IOOC), which concluded with an award presentation in Palmi.

The organizers chose to hold the event in the main square of the Calabrian town in order to comply with local safety regulations, which were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“This edition of EVO-IOOC was definitely different from the previous ones, more demanding, but in many ways very gratifying,” the president of the competition, Antonio G Lauro, told Olive Oil Times. “The complex preparation of the event was paid back by the support and encouragement of the producers who joined our quality project.”

Over the course of the competition, 449 different extra virgin olive oils, including 42 flavored oils, were sampled by the team of 25 judges, all of whom participated from their home countries. The results were live streamed from a mobile recording studio.

“In an uncertain world scenario that we could have never imagined, producers faced new difficulties and challenges and yet created new ways to promote and distribute their excellent [products],” Lauro said. “It is also for this reason that we have not stopped the competition and managed to better adapt it to the current situation.”

Among the various winners, selected by category and hemisphere, three Italian and two Spanish companies received best in class awards for the Northern Hemisphere.

Brazilian producers earned three best in class awards. A Greek producer was awarded for the best international flavored extra virgin olive oil.

“These recognitions reward us for the work done and are confirmation of our commitment to quality over the years,” said Franco Scisci, who received two gold medals and a prize for the best international organic in the North Hemisphere.

“Despite the difficult situation, over the last months we have been able to continue our normal work in the olive grove,” the Apulian farmer said. “Also, we have seen a growing interest among consumers, and this suggests that habits are still changing and more attention is given to quality products.”

The complete list of winners can be found on the EVO-IOOC website.

The fourth edition of the EVO International Olive Oil Contest (EVO-IOOC) concluded with an award ceremony held on June 1 in the City Council Hall of Palmi, a landmark of the Violet Coast, in Calabria.

Writer: Ylenia Granitto

The resort, located in the southern end of the Tyrrhenian shoreline, was the beautiful backdrop to the competition that celebrates some of the world’s best extra virgin olive oils and flavored olive oils.

It is a great satisfaction to have obtained such recognition after a complicated campaign. This award is the results of considerable efforts by all of us.

- Marcello Palumbo, of the Sololio cooperative

“The EVO-IOOC 2019 has been a real challenge, which was eventually won by producers determined to achieve the highest quality in spite of everything,” Antonio G. Lauro, the president of competition and native of the Violet Coast, said. “An excellent quality has compensated the decline in production suffered by countries like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, and Brazil.”

Lauro added that it was “an extremely difficult year, that put a strain on many farms, turned out to be excellent in terms of quality, as shown by the prizes awarded in the competition.”

The final event of the contest was opened by the general manager Stefania Reggio, who revealed the figures of this edition, which received 431 entries from 17 countries. Italy won the most prizes with 121 medals, including three Best in Class awards, followed by Greece, with 50 medals and Spain, with 39. Portugal earned 20 medals, followed by Turkey, with 19, Argentina and Brazil, both won 12 and 11 medals, respectively.

Among the award-winning producers, Consuelo Garzo, who manage the Dolciterre farm in Seminara, Calabria, with her sisters Alessia and Maria Rosa, pointed out that “these awards come at the end of a challenging season as a recognition of a strong commitment.”

With their Ottobratica they earned the Gaetano Avallone special award for the Best Italian Monovarietal.

“Our olive grove is composed of 80 percent secular plants of this autochthonous cultivar,” she said, after receiving the prize along with other recognitions for their ‘Rosì’ and Olio di Calabria PGI.

“It is even more exciting to celebrate the quality of our extra virgin olive oils here in our land,” she added.

Overall, 259 monovarietals in the competition accounted for 64 percent of samples, representing 150 different cultivars, while products with designations of geographical origin were 20 percent of entries.

The high quality of the extra virgin olive oils required four days of intense work carried out by an international panel composed by Aida Lazzez (Tunisia), Birsen Can Pehlivan (Turkey), Ehud Soriano (Israel), Cristina Stribacu, Eleftheria Germanaki and Kostas Liris (Greece), Miciyo Yamada, Hiromi Nakamura and Nori Ogido (Japan), Na Xie (China), Javier Sànchez Pedròs, Juan Baseda Torruella and M Ángeles Calvo Fandos (Spain), Francisco Ataíde Pavão (Portugal), Carmelo Orlando, Roberto Marchesini, Rosario Franco and Indra Galbo (Italy).

“It is a great satisfaction to have obtained such recognition after a complicated campaign,” Marcello Palumbo, who is in charge of production at the Sololio cooperative in Ostuni, Puglia, said. “Our Delia Audace is a blend of Frantoio, Coratina, and Cassanese produced from the olive trees managed by my wife, Mimma, and her sisters, Dina and Carmela Bruno.”

“This award is the results of considerable efforts by all of us,” he added.

Gold Medals went also to the lemon and orange flavored olive oils produced in Greece by Peter Liokareas.

“It was a great recognition for our company,” he said after receiving awards including a Gold Medal and a Silver Medal for ‘Wild,’ a blend of wild olives and Koroneiki and ‘Early Harvest,’ a Koroneiki monovarietal.

“I live in the U.S. and frequently travel to Greece to manage our olive trees, which are taken care of by my family,” he added, introducing his cousin Fotios, who had just arrived from Peloponnese. “This year the humid climate favored outbreak of pests such as the olive fruit fly and we lost part of production, but we worked very hard to try to do the best with the fruits that we have saved and, these awards, received at the end of such a hard season are even more special for us.”

The complete list of winners is available on the competition website.

EVO International Contest Concludes with Paestum Ceremony

Writer: Ylenia Granitto

The contest, founded by Antonio G. Lauro, concluded with an awards ceremony among ancient Greek temples.

The Archaeological Park of Paestum and its magnificent temples became the setting for the award ceremony of the third edition of the EVO International Olive Oil Contest led by Antonio G. Lauro. On May 19, the UNESCO World Heritage Site hosted producers, journalists and olive oil enthusiasts who discovered the winners of the competition among its 502 entries.

The celebration highlighted the theme of the contest with respect to the millennia-old temples. “The choice of the location was strongly desired by the EVO-IOOC management team,” said Lauro, who created the event with Stefania Reggio. “Here, you can breathe the history and feel that olive oil was and continues to be the link between yesterday and tomorrow.”

The mayor of Capaccio Paestum, Franco Palumbo, and the deputy mayor, Teresa Palmieri, welcomed the competition which was made possible thanks to the director of the archaeological area of Paestum, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the organization of producers UNASCO, the IP consulting company Barzanò & Zanardo, the Mondini Rusconi Law Firm, the company Clemente Costruzioni Meccaniche, the Savoy Beach Hotel in Paestum and the Association of tasters Oleum.

An international panel of judges analyzed oils from 20 producing countries, many of which came from Greece, Spain and Turkey. During the ceremony, a special mention went to an extra virgin olive oil from war-torn Syria.

Fifty-five percent of the oils evaluated in the competition were monovarietal, as 156 different olive cultivars were presented. About 45 percent of participants came from Italy, with a major presence from Puglia and Calabria. 305 medals, 173 Gold and 132 Silver, were awarded.

Three Italian companies from Tuscany, Sicily and Campania, and two from Greece and Spain were awarded the Best in Class North Hemisphere. Among these, Domenico Bonanno produced an excellent extra virgin olive oil in Campobello di Mazzara, in the province of Trapani.

“We are delighted with these awards,” Bonanno said after receiving two Gold Medals with the extra virgin olive oils Passione e Riserva. “Work is increasing every year but we have been helped by a great season, exceptional from the climatic point of view, which has allowed us to obtain an excellent production of the highest quality confirmed by these recognitions.”

The Southern Hemisphere was dominated by Brazil with three Best in Class. “It was with great happiness that we received the awards at the EVO-IOOC, which was the first contest that we have ever entered with our olive oil,” said André Secco of Café Fazenda Sertãozinho LTDA, in Minas Gerais. “We started planting in 2009 and we have been improving our production and processes year by year. These awards mean that we are on the right track and that it is possible for Brazil to produce quality olive oil.”

The complete list of the winners is available on the event’s website.

The EVO International Olive Oil Contest was presented during a press conference at the National Archaeological Museum of Paestum, and now producers can sign up to the third edition of the competition conceived and directed by the renowned taster Antonio G. Lauro.

EVO is not only an Italian acronym to designate extra virgin olive oil, but more importantly on this occasion it stands for evolution.

- Antonio G. Lauro

EVO-IOOC, organized by Lauro and VINAR SA Argentina, with the collaboration of the association Oleum and Voglia di Viaggiare Eventi, will culminate in a series of events leading up to an award ceremony which will take place in Capaccio Paestum, in the province of Salerno, May 14-19 2018.

“EVO is not only an Italian acronym to designate the extra virgin olive oil, but more importantly on this occasion it stands for evolution,” said the president of the contest. “The event evolved, and we moved from Sicily to Campania, while enhancing the management and enriching the program,” pointed out Lauro who, after the success of the first two editions of the D-IOOC, brought his competition’s format to the olive-growing territory of Cilento.

The EVO-IOOC is finalizing its agenda which will include happenings both on-site and at an international level, organizers said. “We already planned activities such as ‘EVO Kids’ and ‘EVO Teen’ dedicated to children and teenagers, workshops for producers, and tourist activities that will be conducted in archeological sites,” Lauro pointed out, mentioning that in Paestum there are three of the most well-preserved ancient Greek temples. He anticipated that the closing ceremony will take place in a still-secret suggestive location.

Antonio G. Lauro

“We received the appreciation of Italian and international organizations which now become institutional and technical partners of the event,” said Lauro, specifying that organizing the competition in the town of Capaccio Paestum was possible thanks to the willingness of local institutions.

“The city council immediately agreed to be a partner of the project. Mayor, Franco Palumbo and deputy mayor, Teresa Palmieri, who are both olive-growers, expressed their enthusiasm in supporting this competition as a vehicle for promoting high-quality productions of the territory, boosting the supply chain and improving the education of young people,” Lauro affirmed.

Extra virgin olive oils from around the world will be assessed by an international panel. Twenty professional tasters will choose the best products of several categories including, organic, monovarietal, blend, an “International Award” and PDOs/PGIs, the first four being subdivided into Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. Also, gold and silver medals will be awarded and a special prize will go to the best EVOO from Campania.

“The work of the panel will be summarized in a buyers guide, which will illustrate the sensory profiles of the winning extra virgin olive oils, and will be presented at international fairs and events, including ACCIGusto in Tokyo, where we will launch the Japanese version,” said the managing director, Stefania Reggio.

“We want to give visibility to producers with a contest founded on the professionalism of the staff and the experience of judges. The competition evolved also through the organization of interesting and useful seminars,” she explained, referring to a workshop on web marketing and a talk that will be given by the law firm Barzanò & Zanardo on the importance of intellectual property and what it means to register a trademark.

“We set up tasting sessions and already scheduled an event with our sponsor Alfa Pizza to talk about the main elements of the Mediterranean diet like flour, mozzarella, tomato and extra virgin olive oil,” Reggio revealed. “Other events will be confirmed in the coming days. Several activities will be dedicated to producers and even more to consumers.”

Olive oil producers can register for the EVO-IOOC on the organization’s website.

By LUCIANA SQUADRILLI on October 9, 2015 Filed in Olive Oil Times Fairs and Competitions.

The olive oil taster and consultant Antonio Lauro has for years believed that Southern Italy — including the famous olive oil-producing regions such as Calabria, Apulia and Sicily — was in need of its very own high-profile olive oil competition.

Now he says it will have just that, with Lauro at the helm of the new Domina International Olive Oil Contest (D-IOOC) to be held from May 13-17, 2016 in Palermo, Sicily.

“I have always thought that Southern Italy had to host its own competition and that it had to be a relevant one,” Lauro said. “There are some other awards such as Sirena d’Oro or Biol, but they are limited to specific categories, such as the Italian PDO or organic oils.”

This first edition will only be the beginning of a new process of involvement and positive debate for producers. - Antonio Lauro

Lauro said he aims for the new contest to become “the main European extra virgin olive oil competition,” open to Northern and Southern Hemisphere products and with five different categories: extra virgin olive oil, organic, PDO, single variety and blends.

His partners in this venture include Vinar, an Argentinian consulting company run by Raúl Castellani and his son Leonardo, who already manage other international competitions in Israel and Argentina, and the Domina hotel brand, which owns a number of properties located in Italy, including Milan, Palermo, Venice and Positano.

The Domina Milano Fiera Hotel will host the launch press conference on the October 23, to meet the national and international press gathered in Milan for the last week of Expo 2015.

The beautiful Domina Coral Bay Santa Flavia, a few kilometers from Palermo, will host the competition and related events including guided tastings, a scientific conference dedicated to “oil, nutrition and health,” and a gala dinner and award ceremony.

On the last day, it will also be possible for attendees to taste the short-listed samples.

According to the organization about 200 samples are expected, mainly hailing from the Mediterranean area (Spain, Portugal, France, Turkey, Ciprus, Malta, Greece and Italy) and from the Middle East (Israel, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank) but also from Overseas and the Southern Hemisphere, including North and South America and South Africa.

The jury will include Lauro himself, Barbara Alfei and Indra Galbo from Italy, Selin Ertür from Turkey, Brigida Jimènez from Spain, Cristina Stribacu from Greece, Miciyo Yamada from Japan and Taghreed Mohamed A. Shehadeh from Palestine.

Among the key points to distinguish D-IOOC from many other competitions, Lauro suggested, are the different relationships to be established within the participating producers, and an emphasis on the touristic potential of the event.

On the first point, Lauro said, “We hope that this first edition will only be the beginning of a new process of involvement and positive debate for producers. We want to invite them to join us for a four-day, full immersion of interaction, exchanges and reciprocity.”

“When the Domina management told me they were interested in the food and wine field, and that they wanted to aim for quality both for their usual offer and for new kinds of events, I immediately realized they were the ideal partner for the competition since they are an innovative, dynamic and proactive company,” Lauro said.

Illustrating the point, the hotel will be creating a specific “olive oil enthusiast” package to give visitors the chance to partake in the competition by joining tastings, conferences and meetings, while enjoying the breathtaking beauty of the Sicilian island.