All olive oil competitions that determine the quality of olive oils on the basis of pure tasting, called “tasting” in technical jargon, succumb to a big misunderstanding: they judge the oil as it is, without considering whether it should be combined with a plate.
Tasters, in the context of competitions and tastings, tend to reward harmonious oils.
The fact is, however, that olive oil is not drunk pure, but is combined with a dish, therefore it requires that the extra virgin olive oil has pronounced attributes and is not harmonious, at least in part.
We use salt, pepper or sugar to make a dish better and more palatable overall. However, it never occurred to us to say that salt is too salty, sugar is too sweet, or chili peppers are too hot. In return, we can very well say that a dish is too salty, which is mostly the case when we have seasoned it with too much salt.
It is striking that the tasting guidelines and tasting forms of many competitions are very similar or even completely the same, which in turn means that the value of some competitions should be questioned.
It has become “fashionable” that the harmony of numerous well-known competitions is given a grotesquely higher weight than is done, for example, to the fruity, bitter, spicy, complexity of olive oil.
It happens that the evaluation of the organoleptic elements proper, those of the “olive fruit”, produce lower scores, overall, than the evaluation of harmony alone.
More specifically, it happens that oils are rewarded thanks to very high ratings of the harmony parameter.
Let’s look at a specific case then.
For this oil the Juror determined a total of 28 points in the olfactory evaluation, of which 18 were contributed by harmony. 64% of the olfactory score was achieved by itself through an assumed very high harmony. If you add up the points scored across all sensory categories, the amazement increases: this oil received 86 out of 100 possible points and was awarded a gold medal (84 points). This is questionable because the taster at the top of the test sheet rated the oil with a fruitiness of 5, a bitterness of 3 and a spiciness of 4, indicating a product presumably without major aromatic accents.
Harmony thus becomes the key with which to award prizes.
It is a fact that the same tasters and jury members always take part in different competitions and it is therefore hardly surprising that the same oils, no matter where, win prizes.
Last but not least, it remains to say that such competitions are always a question of money. You earn a lot of money on 300 samples at 200 euros each.
