Meet a Member

Marciano Estate

“Growing up in Marseille, every day I walked to school, the aromas from the small olive oil factory on that street was always in the air. It is the scent and the flavor that I always tasted in the food.” Our owner & vintner, Mr. Maurice Marciano, spent years in finding an ideal site to grow and make wine, also sought a property where his long-held dream of making olive oil could be fulfilled.

“I’ll never forget the first time I visited the property that would become Marciano Estate. I fell in love with the property and I waited for the soil analysis to be sure that I could make an amazing wine here. When I started this project, I looked for likeminded people to help bring my dreams to fruition. People who were as single-mindedly obsessed with quality as me.”

“I planted eight acres of olive trees, groves of Italian (Leccino, Maurino, Nocellara and Pendolino) and over a hundred Spanish Arbequina trees. A blend of olive trees that we use to create our very own signature of extra virgin olive oil under the supervision of Maria Milagros Castro who joined us since the beginning of this project.” Today, these many years later, Marciano Estate carries on a tradition that began over a century ago, a place where dreams and passion have combined to fulfill a property’s destiny.

Marciano Estate is now home to several olive groves, with over a thousand olive trees from Italian and Spanish cultivars. Each year the olives are handpicked into small, vented bins and carried by refrigerated truck to a mill where the oil is expertly extracted – all on the same day to preserve a fresh, pungent and spicy flavors.

Produced in quantities dictated solely by quality, Marciano Estate showcases years of striving for what can only be called a beautiful expression of site. Our vision is to keep of our Marciano Estate olive oil and pass the certification of being 100% extra virgin organic olive oil.

Marciano Estate organic extra virgin olive oil has won multiple gold medals and best of show from the California Olive Oil Council (COOC).
The COOC seal of certification for Marciano Estate extra virgin olive oil is critical to have because it guarantees a sign of quality and origin for our consumers.

Maria Milagros Castro, who has over 20 years of hands-on experienceas an agronomist specializing in olives is heading this project for Marciano Estate. Born in Mexico, she came to the US to further her work with olive oil, and, to that end, studied olive culture in both Italy and Spain. These days, Milagros is a member of the esteemed California Olive Oil Council Taste Panel, which requires its members to have an extraordinarily precise ability to evaluate olive oil quality and defects. She also owns a pest control business, which uses only organic pesticides.

Milagros remains very active in the agricultural community, participating in collaborative research on California olive oil, as well as in symposiums ranging on subjects from pests, irrigation, fertilization and olives diseases to the health benefits of olive oil.