Kotinos Olive Oil Awards Highlight Various Greek Regions
The Filaios Olive Oil Society, organizers of the third Kotinos Quality Competition for packed, branded extra virgin olive oils, presented awards and honorable mentions to 39 Greek olive oils at the Food Expo on March 11 at the Metropolitan Expo Center near the Athens airport. A number of olive oil varieties from several different Greek regions were awarded.
This year, the Kotinos Competition awarded prizes to three categories of extra virgin olive oils--PDO/PGI, Organic, and Conventional—with gold, silver, and bronze awards for robust and medium intensity extra virgin olive oils (EVOOs) in each category, plus honorable mentions in four of the categories. Two olive oils tied for the gold award in two categories.
Another region making a strong showing at the Kotinos awards was northeastern Greece, not far from the border with Turkey. Argyris Kelidis’s Kyklopas won a gold award for their conventionally produced medium intensity Kyklopas Ktimata (Estates) Early Harvest EVOO, a Makri monovarietal from the area expected to be approved as Greece’s newest PDO. This is one of 59 awards in ten years for the Kelidis family business, and the third this year. Niki Kelidi feels “lucky because we have a unique variety in a unique place” that includes many olive trees thousands of years old, as well as the Cyclops cave that inspired the name of their olive oil.
Filaios organizes their annual Kotinos Competition in cooperation with other olive sector organizations, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Rural Development and Food. The competition aims to promote high quality packaged extra virgin olive oils, support those involved in their production and distribution, and disseminate information about the distinctive organoleptic characteristics (aroma and taste) of Greek EVOOs.
The Kotinos is noteworthy for being a non-commercial competition that is governed by rules of an equivalent standard to the strict criteria applied by the International Olive Council in the Mario Solinas Quality Awards, and for the head of its jury, Effie Christopoulou. One of the pioneers of the organoleptic method for evaluating olive oil 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.
Filaios vice president Panayiotis Karantonis is “confident that Kotinos has great potential. Slowly but steadily, people in the olive oil sector believe in it and trust it as an objective competition.”
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