2014 International Olive Oil Competition Winners Announced

Sure, you cook with olive oil on the regular, you shake some on your salads, and some of you may have even tried that trick where you cleanse your face with it, but for the thousands of olive oil experts, producers and connoisseurs around the world, olive oil is their life's passion.  Every year the global members of the olive oil family come together to award the year's best olive oils from around the world at the New York International Olive Oil Competition. This year's event was sponsored by Fairway Market, and took place at the International Culinary Center in New York's SoHo, where everyone dug into cocktails and meals made with some of the best olive oils in the world and Curtis Cord, president of the New York International Olive Oil Competition, announced the best in show, gold, and silver award recipients.

"To those producers who don't win today, thank you for your ambition to produce a product of magnificent quality," Cord said. "And congratulations for possessing such spirit and aspiration to do something very difficult and vitally important, for the benefit of all of us."

The judges tasted 650 olive oils over the course of four days, and picked almost 200 winners in each category. Steve Jenkins, Fairway's cheesemonger and olive oil expert provided leadership and expertise to the judge's panel. Spain won the most awards, with Italy not too far behind. Surprisingly, Slovenia came through with all four entrants being awarded. The United States didn't do too shabby either. Some of the American "Best In Class" highlights include The Olive Press, Enzo Olive Oil, Ojai Press, and Bondolio, all of which are all located in California.

See the full list of winners here

Joanna Fantozzi is an Associate Editor with The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @JoannaFantozzi