On March 20 at the Food Expo at the Metropolitan Expo Center of Athens, the Awards Ceremony for the Kotinos 2017 Olive Oil Competition highlighted the accomplishments of Greek extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) producers whose careful work at all stages of production enabled them to achieve excellent quality even in this difficult harvest year in Greece.
Vasilis Kamvisis, president of the Advisory Committee of Chemical Experts for SEVITEL, the Greek Association of Industries and Processors of Olive Oil, described a Greek tradition of treating olive trees with love and great care, like children—a tradition he would like to see revived more today. SEVITEL director George Economou emphasized the importance of appropriate cultivation, harvesting, production, and storage methods for the production of the best possible olive oil.
Efi Christopoulou, head of the Kotinos 2017 tasting panel, pointed out that award winning olive oils must not only fit the chemical definition of extra virgin, but also have excellent organoleptic characteristics--“excellent olfactory, gustatory and retronasal perception, complexity, persistence, and harmony.” These result from doing “everything right” to the olives and olive oil, so “assessment of virgin olive oil in a competition is identical to the evaluation of practices which have been implemented” at all stages of production.
A chemist and one of the pioneers of the organoleptic method for evaluating olive oil (using aroma and taste) starting in the early 1980s, Christopoulou has worked with the Greek government, the European Commission, and the International Olive Council (IOC) as well as teaching, writing, and speaking about olive oil evaluation and judging national and international competitions.
Christopoulou discussed the tasting process and pointed out that while there were fewer samples in the Kotinos competition than last year, “the quality was surprisingly better this year than last, since only 3.4% of the submitted samples were classified as virgin (and not EVOO), as opposed to 15.4% virgin last year, although this was a difficult olive crop year for Greece. In addition, only 3.6% of the samples were granted a score of less than 70 this year, while this percentage was 13.6% last year.”
This year’s samples represented 11 different olive varieties from 13 regions of Greece. The complete results of the Kotinos 2017 Competition—gold, silver, and bronze medals as well as honorable mentions--were published earlier.
After the awards were presented, Michalis Tzortzis told Greek Liquid Gold he was very happy to receive a Gold award for robust intensity of fruitiness for Olvia Organic EVOO, an unusual blend of Adramitini (80%) and Kolovi (20%) olive oils from Lesbos which is already sold out for this year. The Kotinos Gold is one of a long line of awards for this 100 year old family olive oil business, starting back in 1935 at the Thessaloniki International Fair and continuing through last year’s Extra Gold at the BIOL Kids competition, where Tzortzis’s two small daughters accepted the award. Their father says they “will continue the business with much love, appreciation, responsibility, and passion when they grow up.”
The Hatzinikolaou family’s Stalos EVOO tied Olvia for the Gold for robust intensity. Stalos is a single-varietal Kolovi EVOO made from unripe olives collected by hand in October from centuries-old trees--another olive oil with a long family tradition in Lesbos, according to their website. Following a legacy started by their great grandfather, the Hatzinikolaou family combines “effort, diligence, gusto and the love of our ancestors with modern milling means to ‘trap’ this precious, beneficial ‘juice’ in a special bottle that highlights its uniqueness.”
The Evge Hellenic Food Company captured the Gold award for medium intensity with their Evge EVOO, an FDA approved, Kosher Certified low acidity Koroneiki monovarietal from the Kalamata area. According to their website, the name “Evge,” “which translates to ‘exceptionally done’ from ancient Greek, is not only our name but our motto.” The company works only with partners that “are as passionate as we are in maintaining the real aroma and high quality of the Greek crop.”
Nikos Maroulakos’s Malva EVOO won the Silver award for medium intensity. Maroulakos told Greek Liquid Gold it is “a great thing” to have their efforts recognized in this way as they try to improve their quality every year. This family in Monemvasia, Lakonia does not hurry to increase its business, but “keeps it slow because we want to control quality, quantity, and prices.”
The Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Lakonia received a Silver Kotinos award for robust intensity for their Doriko EVOO. Matina Miliakou explained that this award is “an honor because we are an organization different from the others; our connection with farmers is a direct one,” allowing them to control all aspects of production with 16,500 farmers and 75 factories.
Oliorama Exclusive PGI Olympia also received the Silver award for robust intensity. Maria Spiliakopoulou told Greek Liquid Gold, “competitions are important for both companies and consumers,” since they provide a guide for “people who are not familiar with the product and want to have good quality in their diet. This competition is especially important to us since it is held in our country, and it is strictly meritocratic: they don’t go easy on you.”
The experts at the ceremony agreed about that. Christopoulou mentioned that Kotinos is a non-commercial competition that “is very strict regarding the composition of the jury, governed by rules of an equivalent standard to IOC rules.” Vangelis Divaris, Chairman of the board for Filaios, the Association of Friends of Olive Oil, which organized the Kotinos Competition, explained that Kotinos strives to act as a model for competitions by focusing on excellence, evaluating EVOOs with great care, and selling nothing.
According to the Filaios website, the main goals of this competition are to help and encourage those involved with olive oil production and distribution “to promote products with exquisite organoleptic characteristics (quality criterion perceived by the consumers), safeguarding and improving their quality and promoting the usage and consumption of high-quality olive oils,” and “to inform and encourage consumers … and professionals using olive oil … to recognize and appreciate” not only the “scientifically proved healthy and nutritional value and properties,” but also “the organoleptic characteristics, namely the sensory properties (aroma-taste-harmony) of high-quality extra virgin olive oils.”
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Thanks to Filaios for the photos that appear with this article.