Sicily’s Azienda Agricola Oliva Triumphs at 2021 NYIOOC

Italian producer Azienda Agricola Oliva has won a Gold Award at the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, the world's most prestigious olive oil quality contest.

We are excited, proud and grateful for this award, as this was our first time entering the NYIOOC.

Francesca Oliva, owner

In the 2020/21 crop year, the company produced 30,000 liters of extra virgin olive oil in Sicily using traditional methods. Azienda Agricola Oliva earned the Gold Award for its Favola brand, a robust Tonda Iblea.

"We are excited, proud and grateful for this award, as this was our first time entering the NYIOOC," owner Francesca Oliva said. "Such an important acknowledgment for us is not limited to the quality of the individual products but is also a recognition of the passion and attention our family has invested for the last 60 years in the entire production chain, beginning from the harvesting to the final bottling."

For the producers behind Favola, this year's award is especially gratifying after an exceptionally hot spring lowered the quality of the olives on their trees.

"Our region faced a gap in production due to spring weather conditions and hot temperature, but not as bad as the rest of Italy," Oliva said. "We experienced generally low quantities of raw fruits, but we had a good yield in production, so we are quite satisfied with the performance we got last year at the end of harvesting."

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, held each spring in New York, is the world's largest and most prestigious olive oil contest. Its annual listing of award winners is considered the authoritative guide to the year’s best extra virgin olive oils.

The complete list of winners can be viewed on the Official Index of the World's Best Olive Oils.