Join the judges at the Sydney Royal Olive Oil Competition
Behind every gold medal on an olive-oil bottle is a rigorous blind tasting most buyers never see. Understanding how the judges actually work — the blue glass, the slurp, the three faults they hunt for — is the fastest way to start tasting like one yourself.
Olive-oil competitions can look like marketing, and the medals certainly get used as such. But the judging behind them is serious, structured and genuinely useful to understand — because the panel is doing, formally, exactly what you can learn to do at the kitchen table. They are not chasing a favourite flavour; they are grading an oil against a standard, and hunting for the specific faults that disqualify it.
How a panel actually tastes
Proper judging is blind and deliberate. The oil is served in a small blue glass — coloured on purpose, so the judge cannot be swayed by how green or golden it looks. It is warmed in the cupped hand to release its aromas, then smelled, then taken into the mouth and slurped with air, spreading it across the palate and back toward the throat where the peppery bitterness registers. Colour, remember, tells you nothing about quality; the blue glass exists precisely to remove that distraction.
What wins and what disqualifies
An oil is scored for its positive qualities — fruitiness above all, plus a balanced bitterness and pungency — and, crucially, marked down or thrown out for defects. To be graded extra virgin an oil must have zero defects, and judges are trained to name three in particular: rancid (old, oxidised, like stale nuts), fusty (from olives left to ferment in heaps before pressing), and musty (mould and damp). One clear fault and the oil is out, however pleasant it might otherwise seem.
| What the judge seeks | Positive (score up) | Fault (score out) |
|---|---|---|
| Fruitiness | Fresh olive, grass, green fruit | Rancid — stale, oxidised, old nuts |
| Bitterness | A clean, balanced bitter note | Fusty — fermented, from heaped olives |
| Pungency | A living peppery catch in the throat | Musty — mould, damp, cellar |
Taste like a judge at home
You can run a simplified version tonight. Pour a little oil into a small glass — a tumbler you cannot see through is closest to the blue glass — warm it in your hand, cover it, then smell for fresh, green, grassy fruit. Sip and slurp air through it, and feel for the peppery bite at the back of the throat that marks a fresh, polyphenol-rich oil. Then check for the faults: does it smell of old nuts, of ferment, of damp cellar? A fruity, peppery, defect-free oil is, by the judges’ own yardstick, the real thing. Compare two side by side and the differences leap out. See it applied in tasting across a region’s oils.
The home taster’s checklist
- Ignore colour — pros hide it in blue glass because it says nothing about quality.
- Warm, cover, smell for fresh green, grassy, fruity aromas.
- Slurp with air and feel for the peppery catch in the throat.
- Hunt the faults: rancid (stale nuts), fusty (ferment), musty (damp).
How olive oil is judged: common questions
Why is competition oil tasted in blue glass?
To hide the oil’s colour, which tells you nothing about quality, so judges assess only aroma and taste.
What are judges looking for?
Positive qualities — fruitiness, balanced bitterness and pungency — and the absence of defects. Extra virgin must have zero defects.
What are the main faults?
Rancid (oxidised, like stale nuts), fusty (from olives fermented in heaps before pressing) and musty (mould and damp).
Why slurp the oil?
Drawing air through the oil spreads it across the palate and toward the throat, releasing aroma and revealing the peppery bitterness of a fresh oil.
Can I taste oil properly at home?
Yes — warm a little in a covered opaque glass, smell for green fruit, slurp for the peppery catch, and check for rancid, fusty or musty faults.
The single most freeing thing the judges know is that colour is meaningless — that is why they taste from a blue glass you cannot see through. Forget the beautiful green of the bottle on the shelf; it is often just marketing, and sometimes a dye of chlorophyll from leaves crushed in. Judge with your nose and throat instead: fresh green fruit, a clean bitterness, a peppery catch at the back — and no whiff of stale nuts, ferment or damp. Learn those few signals and you have, in effect, joined the panel.
Drawn from standard blind sensory-panel methods for grading extra virgin olive oil and its recognised defects.