Ollo Extra Virgin Olive Oil Wins At International Olive Oil Competition
Every winter another crop of olive oils comes home draped in medals from international competitions. Some of those awards are meaningful; some are almost meaningless. Here is how to read them — and how to read the one number that quietly matters more than any medal: acidity.
An olive oil competition is, at heart, a beauty contest with chemistry attached. Judges taste blind, in cobalt-blue glasses that hide the colour, and score for fruitiness, bitterness and pungency and for the absence of defects. Labs, separately, measure things like free acidity and peroxides. A serious contest combines both. The trouble is that ‘award-winning’ on a front label tells you nothing about which contest, how tough it was, or how the oil tastes now — a year and a warm shelf later. Treat medals as a weak signal, not proof.
What ‘best chemical composition’ means
When a competition praises an oil’s chemistry, it usually means low free acidity, low peroxide value and a clean spectrophotometric reading — the numbers that say the fruit was healthy, milled fast and handled cleanly. They are markers of good practice, not of flavour. An oil can be chemically pristine and still taste flat. So a chemistry prize is a genuine compliment to the grower’s care, but it is not the same as the sensory prize that tells you the oil is delicious. Read both, and trust your own palate over either.
The acidity myth
The number people fixate on is free acidity, expressed as a percentage of oleic acid. By law an extra virgin must sit at or below 0.8%, and good ones are far lower. But here is the catch that marketing exploits: you cannot taste free acidity. It is not sourness. It is a laboratory measure of how much the oil’s fats have broken down — a proxy for damaged fruit, slow milling or poor storage. A very low figure at bottling is a good sign of clean production; it says nothing about how peppery, fruity or fresh the oil will taste, and nothing about how it has aged since.
Early harvest, ripe harvest
One real distinction worth understanding sits behind many award oils: when the fruit was picked. Early-harvest oils, from green olives, tend to be lower-yielding, greener, more bitter and more pungent, and richer in the antioxidants that keep them stable. Later, riper fruit gives a softer, sweeter, more abundant oil. Neither is ‘better’ — they are different tools. A medal rarely tells you which you are getting; the words ‘early harvest’ or a very green, peppery taste tell you far more.
| What you see | What it actually proves | How much to trust it |
|---|---|---|
| ‘Award-winning’ | Someone entered a contest | Low on its own — which contest? |
| Sensory gold medal | A blind panel liked it fresh | Useful, if the contest is reputable |
| ‘Best chemical composition’ | Clean, careful production | Good practice, not flavour |
| Acidity 0.3% | Low fat breakdown at bottling | A freshness marker, not a taste |
| Harvest date on label | How fresh the oil is now | The most useful number of all |
How to read a bottle
- Look for a harvest date — it beats any medal for telling you if the oil is fresh.
- Do not chase a low acidity figure as if it were flavour; it is a production marker you cannot taste.
- Note ‘early harvest’ if you like green, peppery oils; riper oils are softer and sweeter.
- Trust your own mouth — a good oil tastes fresh, fruity and clean, medal or none.
Olive oil awards and acidity: common questions
Does a low acidity number mean a better-tasting oil?
No. Free acidity is a lab measure of fat breakdown that you cannot taste. A low figure signals careful production, but flavour comes from the fruit, the harvest timing and freshness.
Are olive oil competition medals worth anything?
Sometimes. A blind sensory medal from a reputable contest is a fair sign the oil tasted good when fresh — but it says nothing about the bottle on your shelf a year later.
What is the acidity limit for extra virgin?
0.8% free acidity, expressed as oleic acid, is the legal ceiling. Good extra virgins are usually well below it, but the number alone does not make an oil delicious.
Why are hemispheres judged in separate competitions?
So oils are tasted while genuinely fresh. Northern and southern harvests fall about six months apart, so judging them separately keeps the comparison fair.
What is the single most useful thing on the label?
The harvest date. Olive oil does not improve with age, so a recent harvest tells you more about quality in the glass than any award.
I have watched perfectly ordinary oils sell hard on a medal and a 0.3% acidity boast, and I have watched buyers pay for both as if they were flavour. They are not. Acidity is a production marker you cannot taste; a medal is a snapshot of one morning in a judging room. The number that actually protects you is the harvest date, because the one thing no award can fix is an oil that has sat too long. Buy fresh, buy recent, and let your own palate award the medals.
An evergreen explainer on olive oil competitions and free acidity, drawn from IOC grading standards and blind-tasting practice.