`Nicolas Alziari - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglish
enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Nicolas Alziari

By Tara Vassiliou
Feb. 1, 2012 09:41 UTC
For over 140 years Alziari has been a much sought-after name by lovers of olive oil.

In 1868 Nicolas Alziari left the fam­ily laun­dry busi­ness, to pur­chase a few old mills in Nice and pur­sue his real pas­sion. He recog­nised early on that in order to stand out from his com­peti­tors he would need to focus on excel­lence and, adopt­ing ter­mi­nol­ogy from the Champagne world, he cre­ated his ​‘grands crus’ olive oils.

In 1920 Alziari set up his epony­mous shop in the cen­tre of Nice. Following the war, the next gen­er­a­tion of Alziari took over the reins and suc­cess­fully guided the busi­ness through to the 1980s; a period which her­alded a boom in the sec­tor when the health ben­e­fits of extra vir­gin olive oil became more widely doc­u­mented. Subsequently, the Alziari prod­uct range was extended to include gourmet prod­ucts such as foie gras, con­fi­ture, honey, and Champagne; as well as olive oil-based beauty prod­ucts.

Today Alziari olive oil is sold in spe­cial­ity bou­tiques in 19 coun­tries from Tokyo to New York. The shop in the old town of Nice still exists and is pop­u­lar with tourists and locals alike, who seek out the Alziari olive oil sold in its dis­tinc­tive and attrac­tive tins. The Alziari Grand Crus range from: ​‘douce’ (mild), ​‘fruitée douce’ (mild and fruity), through to ​‘fruitée intense’ (intense and fruity).

The com­pany web­site states that despite changes in the European labelling stan­dards (the most recent being EU No 29/2012, dated 13 January 2012), one can­not always rely on the label. This com­ment was used against Alziari in a French tele­vi­sion exposé that accused Alziari of sup­ple­ment­ing its local sup­ply with olives from Spain.

Alziari were some­what per­plexed by these ​‘accu­sa­tions’ as they have been sourc­ing olives from beyond the French bor­ders and sell­ing blended oils since 1900. Alziari’s Commercial Manager, David Piot noted that this was in fact what they’re famous for and what their cus­tomers seek — a claim backed by their legions of fans. What is irrefutable is Alziari’s advice on select­ing olive oil: ​“Taste, taste and re-taste.”


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