Olio Capitale Competition with 231 contestants, winners will be announced Saturday 16 March

231 extra-virgin olive oils are competing to win the awards of Olio Capitale Competition 2019. These are top quality products from Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Spain, Portugal and – for the first time – Morocco. The number of contestants is significant, considering that most olive oil producing Italian regions were affected by bad wheather conditions resulting into a substantial decresase in production.

Important new addition in this edition: all registered visitors will be provied with a sensory evaluation form for each extra-virgin olive oil sample.

Now at its 13th edition, Olio Capitale Competition has become an international event for the best extra-virgin olive oils. There will be 3 categories, as usual: “light fruity”; “medium fruity”; “intense fruity”. A professional panel will pre-select samples that will be assessed by three juries: professional tasters, chefs and restaurateurs and final consumers. The jury of final consumers will meet on Sunday, 10 March, at Tiare Shopping in Villesse.

Its work includes three sessions of 45 minutes each. All participants to the three sessions will attend a mini course of tasting, led by a professional taster. The course is totally free! It will take place at Tiare Meeting, a special area in Tiare Shopping devoted to these initiatives:

Session A on light fruity extra-virgin olive oils, from 11:30am to 12:15
Session B on medium fruity extra-virgin olive oils, from 12:30 to 1:15pm
Session C on intense fruity extra-virgin olive oils, from 3:30pm to 4:15pm

At the end of the mini course, each participant will receive 2 free tickets for Olio Capitale 2019 at Stazione Marittima in Trieste, from 15 to 18 March.

Please, remember that, for the jury of final consumers, each course is available up to 40 attendants only; you need to register by email (include your data, your telephone number and specify the session you wish to join) to info@oliocapitale.it by Thursday, 7 March 2019.

Winners will be announced on day two of Olio Capitale 2019, Saturday, 16 March at 11:00am. Besides the awards to the best “light fruity”, “medium fruity” and “intense fruity”, an honour award – “Ex Albis Ulivis” – will be assigned to the extra-virgin olive oil of exhibitors, that has obtained the highest score. On top of this, there will be another three awards: “Young”, for companies that have been founded over the past five years (2014-2018); “Regina Oleum”, for women entrepreneurs in the oil sector; “Crédit Agricole FriulAdria” for companies based in the North-East of Italy. The awarding ceremony of Olio Capitale Competition – a real show for operators and fans of extra-virgin olive oil – will be chaired by the agronomist and communication expert Giorgio Pace.

All extra-virgin olive oils, produced from drupes of the 2018/19 harvest in Mediterranean countries, have been admitted to the competition irrespective of drupe origin and the relevant oil. Contestants include olive growers producing their own extra-virgin olive oil, oil millers processing, packaging and selling extra-virgin olive oils, cooperatives of oil producers and producers’ associations, companies bottling and packaging extra-virgin olive oils that are able to prove, with appropriate evidence, the origin of the exra-virgin olive oil admitted to the competition.