After a very challenging season, a handful of northern Italian olive oil producers struck gold at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Producers demonstrated their resilience in the face of weather extremes. However, the ungenerous spring and summer led to significantly lower yields in most areas of northern Italy.

“It has been a very complex harvest in the changing scenario of the last few years,” Furio Battelini, technical director of Agraria Riva del Garda, told Olive Oil Times. Compounding the climatic challenges of 2021, Battelini added that many of his trees entered the off-year in the natural alternate bearing cycle of the olive tree.