Tuscia Producer Builds a Legacy of Award-Winning Organic Oils

Summary

Alessandra Nicolai founded her com­pany in Lazio, Italy, guided by a com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­ity and qual­ity, pro­duc­ing organic extra vir­gin olive oil that has won five con­sec­u­tive Gold Awards. Despite chal­lenges such as cli­mate change and labor short­ages, Nicolai finds immense rewards in pro­duc­ing olive oil and has expanded into nat­ural wine pro­duc­tion on her fam­i­ly’s prop­erty.

Lake Bolsena is framed by rolling hills where olive groves, vine­yards and veg­etable gar­dens thrive on fer­tile vol­canic soil. As cul­ti­vated land yields to nat­ural veg­e­ta­tion, cen­turies-old oaks, beeches and chest­nuts rise, shap­ing the dis­tinc­tive atmos­phere of Tuscia, once the heart­land of the Etruscans.

The dif­fi­cul­ties are many, but the sat­is­fac­tions make me believe that pro­duc­ing extra vir­gin olive oil is the best deci­sion I ever made.- Alessandra Nicolai, Azienda Agricola Alessandra Nicolai

On her family’s prop­erty in this north­ern­most cor­ner of Lazio, Alessandra Nicolai founded her com­pany, guided by a com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­ity and uncom­pro­mis­ing qual­ity. Though still young, the project has been remark­ably suc­cess­ful, with her organic extra vir­gin olive oil, A1980, earn­ing five con­sec­u­tive Gold Awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

The oil’s har­mo­nious pro­file — marked by notes of arti­choke and freshly cut grass — stems from a care­ful on-field blend of Caninese, Leccino, Frantoio and Moraiolo olives grown on the south­east­ern banks of the lake in Montefiascone.

“Can you imag­ine that har­vest­ing olives was once one of the things I dis­liked the most?” Nicolai said. Before ded­i­cat­ing her­self to agri­cul­ture, she worked in an office, far removed from daily farm life, help­ing her fam­ily only occa­sion­ally.

The organic blend A1980 is sourced from groves nestled on the southeastern banks of Lake Bolsena.

“During har­vest, my father and grand­mother would make my sis­ter and me pick olives on week­ends, the only days I had off,” she recalled. ​“I spent all my free time toil­ing in the grove, which felt like a real nui­sance.”

Her grand­mother often retold the story of Nicolai’s birth in October 1980, which coin­cided with a grape har­vest in the fam­ily vine­yard. That day, she said, she picked the largest bunch of grapes of her life.

“Looking back, that feels like a sign — like I was meant to be con­nected to the land,” Nicolai said. ​“Even with excel­lent con­di­tions at work, I began to feel breath­less within those four walls. I asked myself what the best thing in my life was, and I pic­tured that land. That’s when I knew I needed to change. My mother was wor­ried I was leav­ing a secure job, but I resigned.”

“I remem­ber wak­ing up those first days and real­iz­ing I no longer had to clock in,” she said. ​“But from the very first morn­ing I set out for the coun­try­side, I knew there was no greater bliss than being there.”

In the begin­ning, Nicolai worked along­side her father and con­tin­ued the family’s long­stand­ing prac­tice of sup­ply­ing olives and grapes to the local coop­er­a­tive.

“The prop­erty was entrusted to my father by my grand­fa­ther, who inher­ited it from his father,” she said. ​“Both my great-grand­par­ents received some plots from the state after the First World War. They had to carry out major recla­ma­tion because the land was full of stones and unsuit­able for cul­ti­va­tion. Thanks to their efforts, we now enjoy excep­tional, min­eral-rich soil.”

The sky­line of Montefiascone — home to the estate — appears on the label of her extra vir­gin olive oil. Beneath it sits the name A1980, which Nicolai devised by com­bin­ing her ini­tial and birth year. The min­i­mal­ist design reflects her straight­for­ward nature and hon­ors the courage it took to chart her own path.

Today, she man­ages the farm with her hus­band, Marco Crisostomi, while her father, Valerio, remains a con­stant source of advice. The farm has been organic since his con­ver­sion in the 1990s.

Marco Crisostomi, Alessandra Nicolai’s husband, motivated her to focus on quality and helps manage the farm.

“When my father first had the option to use pes­ti­cides and other inva­sive treat­ments, he instead chose a sus­tain­able approach and relied only on organic prod­ucts,” she said. ​“He truly pio­neered organic farm­ing in the area. His fore­sight left us pris­tine soil, which we con­tinue to man­age respon­si­bly because we believe it is the only viable way to farm today.”

Over time, Nicolai increas­ingly focused on olive oil. With her husband’s encour­age­ment, she set higher qual­ity stan­dards.

“Marco quickly grew pas­sion­ate about olive oil. He began rig­or­ous train­ing and drew me into this world,” she said. ​“A whole new uni­verse opened up. So we decided to pro­duce a pre­mium oil and said, ​‘Let’s make it and see what hap­pens!’”

They began bot­tling their own oil, spend­ing the first sea­son exper­i­ment­ing until they achieved the qual­ity they sought.

“The first gold at the 2021 NYIOOC is an award I will never for­get,” she said. ​“Submitting the sam­ple, I felt like a com­plete novice. I was hes­i­tant, but encour­aged by indus­try experts — who later became friends — we gave it a try. And we suc­ceeded. Since then, it has been a crescendo. More and more peo­ple appre­ci­ate our prod­uct, and that moti­vates us to con­tinue.”

Growing demand prompted the expan­sion of their groves. The com­pany acquired new plots in Viterbo, bring­ing the total to about 1,300 trees.

The organic blend A1980 is produced on the hills overlooking Lake Bolsena.

“We are still small, but slowly expand­ing,” Nicolai said. ​“Last year we added a hun­dred trees, this year another three hun­dred Caninese plants, and we plan to plant more.”

The com­pany recently ven­tured into nat­ural wine pro­duc­tion. Two lines are cur­rently avail­able: a red crafted from Merlot and Sangiovese, and a white made from Trebbiano, Malvasia and Rossetto. A rosé will debut next year.

“We love this new adven­ture,” she said. ​“Extra vir­gin olive oil and what I like to call ​‘nat­u­rally pro­duced’ wine go per­fectly hand in hand. As with our oil, we aim to high­light native grape vari­eties and honor the ter­ri­tory.”

Their white wine is named Lisandrone, after her great-grand­fa­ther Alessandro, the estate’s first owner. ​“He was known in the vil­lage for his sin­gu­lar, uncon­ven­tional per­son­al­ity,” she said. ​“It is thanks to him that I can do what I love today, and this is my way of hon­or­ing him.”

Nicolai noted that recent olive oil crop years have brought mount­ing chal­lenges. Extreme weather linked to cli­mate change has inten­si­fied bureau­cratic hur­dles, ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs and labor short­ages. Even so, she said the rewards con­tinue to out­weigh the dif­fi­cul­ties.

“My ratio­nal side tells me it’s all incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult. Climate change is a real threat, and every year is dif­fer­ent. Labor is hard to find, and the chal­lenges are many,” she said. ​“Yet my heart says I love what I do. The rewards are immense. People gen­uinely appre­ci­ate our oil. Someone returns after some time and says, ​‘I’ve changed, but I like your oil more.’ Another says, ​‘I’ve heard about your oil and want to taste it.’ When they try it and look amazed by what they dis­cover — that is price­less.”

“We have also met extra­or­di­nary peo­ple in this sec­tor,” she added. ​“And then there is the joy of work­ing in nature. This morn­ing the fresh air, the sun and the view of the lake from our grove were stun­ning. Moments like these make up for every­thing. The dif­fi­cul­ties are many, but the sat­is­fac­tions make me believe that pro­duc­ing extra vir­gin olive oil is the best deci­sion I ever made.”