Ever Tasted Fresh Italian Olive Oil? This Guy Has The Good Stuff

When we speak in October, AJ Vezendy is in Gargano, a region in southeast Italy, for the fall harvest. He goes every year in late September and stays through November to harvest and press olives for Mariella & Grace, the olive oil import company he launched in 2020. “It’s a part of Italy most Americans have never heard of,” Vezendy says. “It’s very remote and difficult to get to—no train stops or airports—and most of the region is a national park, so it’s very protected. It’s one of the most beautiful places on earth.” 

Vezendy lives in Denver, North Carolina, but this is the home of his ancestors and a place he’s visited since he was 16. Gargano (Italy’s “spur”) produces some of the best olives in the world thanks to its mild winters and long, dry summers. On the tip of the spur is the seaside town of Vieste, where regional olive growers take their harvests to the mill for pressing. It’s also where Vezendy’s mother, Maria Grazia, grew up and where much of his extended family still lives.

Maria came to the U.S. as a child and eventually raised Vezendy and his brother in Pennsylvania. “I grew up on Italian food but not on Italian-grown ingredients,” Vezendy says. “The first time I went to Italy, it was this sudden realization of how different food can be compared to what we have in the States.”

AJ Vezendy’s grandmother with his mother, Maria, and uncle Saverio before they left the port of Naples for the U.S.

It would be a while before he added “olive oil importer” to his resume, though. Vezendy, 50, has a background in chemical engineering and spent most of his career in the corporate world. About six years ago, he left to start his own business that sources and distributes recycled plastics. “I’d tinkered around with the idea of starting a business that connected me to my roots in Italy for about 15 years. Then, four years ago, I gave it a whirl,” he says. “I was in a grocery store during COVID, looking for ingredients, and I got fed up and texted my cousin to see if she could send me some olive oil. One thing led to another … and that was the genesis of Mariella & Grace.”

The name is a tribute to his late mother. “She was very humble and wouldn’t want me to name it directly after her,” he says. “In Italy, she was always called Mariella, and ‘grazia’ is ‘grace.’”

Vezendy initially sold his premium bottles of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) direct-to-consumer through his website. He was shocked to discover how many Americans had never tasted fresh EVOO. “The first reaction I get is, ‘Wow, this isn’t like anything I’ve ever had before!’” he says. “The American food system seems to be attacking us at every angle. If you can find a pure source of EVOO, which is used in the Mediterranean diet and deemed as one of the healthiest on the planet, it has all kinds of advantages. It’s high in antioxidants and heart-healthy fats, so it’s like taking a vitamin.”

Harvested olives

Vezendy packs and ships everything himself from his Mooresville warehouse. Bottles are 16.9 ounces and run between $29 and $34, which is why he didn’t pursue the wholesale side at first. “My perception of the restaurant industry was that they buy from Sysco and big distributors, and I couldn’t compete with their prices,” he says. “But I spoke to a few restaurants in Charlotte, and it was just a matter of connecting with like-minded people. To my surprise, it’s 80% of my business now.”

His growing roster of local restaurants includes Ever Andalo, L’Ostrica, Stagioni, The Bottle Tree, Counter-, and Aqua e Vino. It’s rare that a restaurant can buy directly from a producer who’s involved in the harvest, and the chefs he sells to recognize that. Gabriele Grigolon, Aqua e Vino’s executive chef, once told him Mariella & Grace’s EVOO tasted like being back in Italy.

“The aroma and taste are just different,” Vezendy says. “I think it’s something with the maturity of the trees. A farmer showed me an olive tree a few days ago that’s 2,000 years old.”

Mariella & Grace sells bottles of olive oil individually or by subscription.

In addition to top-notch olives, Gargano produces exquisite wheat flour, so Vezendy is working with a pasta maker to expand Mariella & Grace’s offerings. He’s also looking at tomatoes. Not sauce—just whole, peeled tomatoes in a jar with salt water. “Most canned stuff in the U.S. is covered in purée because it covers up a lot of tomatoes that aren’t ripe yet,” he says. “Once someone tastes these tomatoes, it will be a revelation.”

Vezendy still operates his Denver-based plastics business. “(Mariella & Grace) isn’t paying my mortgage yet,” he says. “I put all profits back into larger inventory for the next year.” But he hopes to build something similar to Eataly, the national chain of Italian marketplaces. For now, it helps that his Italian family owns a supermarket and has close relationships with local growers and producers. “They give me a lot of confidence when looking for new products or negotiating,” Vezendy says. “The problem now is my family has gotten better at English than I have at Italian.”