Values of Hospitality, Sustainability Drive Quality at Misciattelli Bernardini Farm

Summary

Girolamo Misciattelli Bernardini con­tin­ues his fam­i­ly’s cen­turies-old tra­di­tion of olive grow­ing and oil pro­duc­tion in Allerona, Umbria, wel­com­ing vis­i­tors to his fam­i­ly’s estate with hos­pi­tal­ity and tast­ings of their prod­ucts. The com­pany focuses on sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices, pre­serv­ing the tra­di­tional olive land­scape, and pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil with a focus on the his­tory and envi­ron­ment of the region.

Perched on a hill over­look­ing the Paglia River val­ley, Allerona is an Umbrian gem at the bor­der with Tuscany and Lazio, where Girolamo Misciattelli Bernardini car­ries on a cher­ished fam­ily tra­di­tion with his com­pany, Misciattelli Bernardini Marchesi delle Ripe.

“We have been olive grow­ers and pro­duc­ers for cen­turies,” he told Olive Oil Times. ​“Our archive doc­u­ments report oil sup­plies to Pope Leo XII, even before his elec­tion in 1823, from one of our estates that belonged to the branch of the Misciattelli. Also, the Bernardini have been landown­ers and farm­ers since at least 1600, and man­aged a mill and a win­ery.”

Today, the ancient fam­ily build­ing, in the village’s his­toric cen­ter, houses the company’s head­quar­ters and store. It is also the res­i­dence of Misciattelli Bernardini and his life and work part­ner, Elena Gorelli, who also comes from a fam­ily of farm­ers in Tuscany.

Their home on the upper floors and the farm shop on the ground floor of the man­sion define an all-Italian style of warm hos­pi­tal­ity.

“All those who arrive in Allerona are wel­come here. We will offer them a glass of wine and a bruschetta driz­zled with our extra vir­gin olive oil, for free,” Misciattelli Bernardini said.

“Within the walls of the old town, we are a few dozen per­ma­nent res­i­dents, and tourists are present from Easter to early September. We opened this small store here, which, from an eco­nomic per­spec­tive, does­n’t make much sense. But we just love this way of work­ing and liv­ing,” he added.

Customers and vis­i­tors are invited to enjoy the charm­ing gar­den of the res­i­dence, which fea­tures a sum­mer lounge adorned with fres­coes from the late 1800s.

“Elena and I greet not only our cus­tomers but all the trav­el­ers who visit Allerona, which is in the cir­cuit of Italy’s most beau­ti­ful vil­lages, and invite them to sit at our table,” Misciattelli Bernardini said. ​“We wel­come them to our home. Sometimes we spend even hours together talk­ing, dur­ing which there is always an enrich­ing human exchange.” 

“We are always glad to give them tips to have a pleas­ant stay, and through the tast­ing of our prod­ucts, we intro­duce our­selves, our com­pany and the ter­ri­tory to them,” he added.

Hospitality is a pas­sion for the cou­ple, who man­age two agri­touris­tic struc­tures, includ­ing one in the coun­try­side of Montepulciano, Gorelli’s home­town. 

Their farm­house accom­mo­da­tion in Allerona com­prises four apart­ments sur­rounded by an olive grove, which is part of a 120-hectare estate that also cul­ti­vates vines and cere­als.

The orchard is made up of 1,000 Leccino, Moraiolo and Frantoio trees. About 300 olive trees were recov­ered by the com­pany last year, which aims to increase pro­duc­tion while pre­serv­ing the land­scape.

“Many olive groves have been aban­doned in the last decades, as it hap­pens often in these mar­ginal hilly areas,” Misciattelli Bernardini said. ​“Initially, we wanted to plant new trees, but then we real­ized that there was no point in cre­at­ing new orchards when we already had won­der­ful trees that just needed to be reju­ve­nated. So, we started recov­er­ing them, also with the intent to restore the land con­tours.”

“However, we don’t want to enlarge the pro­duc­tion capac­i­ties much,” he added. ​“A big­ger com­pany should be man­aged dif­fer­ently. This is an approach to busi­ness that many see as starry-eyed, but work­ing accord­ing to our entre­pre­neur­ial vision con­tin­ues to bring us great sat­is­fac­tion.”

Misciattelli Bernardini worked along­side his father until the late 1980s and then took over the reins of the com­pany, which had pre­vi­ously sold oil in bulk. In 2000, he and Gorelli decided to reor­ga­nize the busi­ness and cre­ated two extra vir­gin olive oil brands.

“Some years ago, I became friends with a neigh­bor, who, after retir­ing from another job in Milan, moved here, where his father had worked as an agron­o­mist and had con­nec­tions with my fam­ily,” Misciattelli Bernardini said.

“We often exchanged advice, as he also started mak­ing olive oil,” he added. ​“This col­lab­o­ra­tion gave me a new boost, since I saw how much he loved this place as well, despite com­ing from some­where else. Together, we decided to apply to get the Protected Designation of Origin for our prod­ucts, with the intent to high­light the ter­ri­tory.”

Ripalta was then cer­ti­fied as Umbria Colli Orvietani PDO, and a few years later, at its first par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, this out­stand­ing blend of native vari­eties received a Gold Award.

“We pick the first olives for this extra vir­gin olive oil around mid-October, then we col­lect those for Aristide, named in honor of my great-grand­fa­ther Aristide Bernardini,” Misciattelli Bernardini said. ​“They are both blends, with dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics, which allows us to sat­isfy dif­fer­ent tastes.” 

“We do not have a com­pany mill and we don’t intend to have one, because there are excel­lent millers whom we can rely on,” he added. ​“We are now col­lab­o­rat­ing with the milling facil­ity man­aged by Paolo Brizi in Orvieto, which boasts the lat­est gen­er­a­tion Alfa Laval equip­ment.”

During the year, the com­pany imple­ments eco-friendly farm­ing prac­tices on the estate, aim­ing to improve soil health and pro­mote local bio­di­ver­sity.

“We man­age our orchards sus­tain­ably, also con­sid­er­ing that we are the first con­sumers of our prod­ucts, but pri­mar­ily to pre­serve this pre­cious envi­ron­ment,” Misciattelli Bernardini said. ​“Our com­pany started sev­eral years ago to use the no-tillage tech­nique, a now increas­ingly wide­spread regen­er­a­tive farm­ing prac­tice to favor the growth of spon­ta­neous plants under the olive trees and limit soil ero­sion.”

“Let me say that every­thing we do is not only for our com­pany, but above all for this land,” he said. ​“I live and work here because I deeply love this vil­lage, which is where I have my roots. This is my heart’s place, and I am com­mit­ted to respect­ing it.”

To pre­serve the tra­di­tional olive land­scape, the com­pany has main­tained the exten­sive plant­ing pat­terns of the orchards, which fea­ture a spac­ing of six meters by six meters or even greater.

“The olive trees in this area were almost all wiped out by the great frost of 1956, then from the still liv­ing ancient stumps the new trunks were reborn, which is why they appear as rel­a­tively young,” Misciattelli Bernardini said.

“I do believe that we farm­ers should act as cus­to­di­ans of the ter­ri­tory,” he added. ​“And I am con­vinced that places like these, where the beauty of the ter­ri­tory goes hand in hand with the health­i­ness of the envi­ron­ment thanks to sus­tain­able farm­ing, can be an exam­ple for an agri­cul­ture that looks at the future of the new gen­er­a­tions.” 

“Moreover, we have so much his­tory behind us, and all of these ele­ments con­tribute to the qual­ity of our pro­duc­tions,” Misciattelli Bernardini con­cluded. ​“Within a bot­tle of our extra vir­gin olive oil, you will find its rich his­tory, its won­der­ful ter­ri­tory and its healthy envi­ron­ment. It’s pre­cisely here that I, as a qual­ity pro­ducer, can make a dif­fer­ence.”