Marqués de Valdueza Wins 2 Golds at 2020 NYIOOC

Marqués de Valdueza won 2 Gold Awards at the 2020 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, the world's most prestigious olive oil quality contest.

Winning consistently helps us gauge the quality of our work.

John Cancilla, sales manager, Marqués de Valdueza

The company makes use of traditional methods to produce extra virgin olive oil in Extremadura, Spain, from a blend of Arbequina, Picual, Hojiblanca and Morisca olives. The winning oils were two medium blends: Marqués de Valdueza and Merula.

The company focused this season on improving its processes to get fruit to the mill in good condition, company Sales Manager John Cancilla said after receiving news of the award.

"Besides the normal vicissitudes of Nature, which a farmer has to deal with every year, this harvest was challenging due to the many improvements we have introduced in our orchard to get cool, undamaged fruit to our mill, without using night harvest, which kills so many birds," Cancilla said. "Using morning hours and small boxes, perfect fruit helps make perfect oil."

Cancilla noted that NYIOOC is the only competition the company enters without fail every year.

"Winning consistently helps us gauge the quality of our work, which, after nearly 400 years producing oil on the Perales de Valdueza Estate, our family considers essential to our very existence," he said.

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, held each spring in New York, is the world's largest and most prestigious olive oil contest and 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