Olive oil and music have more in common than the sheer pleasure they deliver. At their best, they both have notes and nuances that hit the senses in direct and subtle ways. The connections are particularly meaningful to Nick Coleman, co-founder of Grove and Vine, a NYC-based olive oil membership program. A former music school student, he's becoming well-known for his Grove and Vine olive oil club and for collaborations with food-loving rapper and TV personality Action Bronson, including a new Tuscan varietal that sold out in just 90 minutes.
Here, Coleman tells La Cucina Italiana about his journey, the Action Bronson collaborations, and how he always finds the best new extra virgin olive oil.
Nicholas Coleman
What drew you to olive oil?
Fate. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2006 and didn’t know how to make a living in music. I had a record label that wasn’t taking off financially, so I called a friend who worked for Delta, got a buddy pass, and flew to Finland. I backpacked from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara in Africa on a youth EuroRail pass, sleeping on couches and meeting different people. I happened to be passing through Arezzo, Italy during the time of the harvest and was taken in by Nadia Gasperini Rossi, owner of 200-year-old farmhouse Mulinmaria, which is situated amongst hundreds of olive trees. I had never seen an olive tree prior, and began hand harvesting and pressing some of the highest quality olive oil in Tuscany.
How did the experience in Arezzo impact you?
The time I spent at Mulinmaria completely transformed the way I looked at food and how you could live a life around it. It connected me to a deeper sense of tradition. I went back the following year just for the harvest and continued to return annually, working with both Nadia and her husband, who is a winemaker.
Nicholas Coleman with Nadia Gasperini at Mulinmaria.
How did you make a career transition into olive oil?
My career in olive oil began in NYC, when I started working for a French olive oil company called O & Co. in Grand Central Terminal. I was selling olive oil for minimum wage, but at the time, I was happy. I knew I wanted to be around olive oil.
Where did you go from there?
I moved on and began working for Eataly as their chief olive oil expert, teaching courses at their culinary school and traveling to visit the producers. I became an O.N.A.O.O. Certified Taster through Italy’s oldest school for olive oil. I’ve judged at the National Olive Oil Competition, Sol d’Oro, which has built an international network of olive oil experts over many years.
How did the idea for Grove and Vine come about?
As I was teaching classes in NYC, people were approaching me and asking how they could get their hands on the best olive oil. At the same time, the producers I developed relationships with were asking how they could break into the North American market. It was then that I knew I could curate a selection of ever-evolving, premium olive oils based on the Northern and Southern hemisphere harvest, hand-selected, taste-tested, and vetted to ensure freshness and quality.
How does Grove and Vine’s membership program work?
We launched the membership program in 2015, where we release two olive oils per season. Each bottle comes with information on the cultivar, region, regional recipe, producer notes, and a photograph of the grove. We believe that learning, seeing, and tasting when fresh is the ultimate experience, so we put that in a box for the consumer. We aim to celebrate and champion the finest olive oil producers around the world, and expanded to wholesale for restaurants. We’re in roughly 50 across NYC.
How do you select and vet the olive oil?
Samples arrive to us in NYC, which we taste and keep. When we decide on which oil to buy from a producer’s specific cultivar, it gets sent to us in bulk. I then taste the oil that arrives next to the sample that was previously sent. They must be identical. If they are, the bulk oil is bottled, labeled, topped, and sealed here in NYC. This is a huge component in preventing fraud, which is unfortunately very prevalent in the olive oil industry. Quality control is why people trust us.
Grove and Vine and Action Bronson Olive Oil Package.
How did the collaborations with Action Bronson come about?
Action had a show called “Untitled Show” on Vice, where he’d have people from all walks of life on. Amongst the actors, athletes, musicians, and food people, he invited me on for an olive oil tasting episode. After that, he asked me to write about olive oil in his book, “Stoned Beyond Belief.” The rest is history!
What is Action Bronson’s role in the collaboration?
Action is a painter. Each of our bottles has a master painting as the label. For our collaborations with him, he does the painting, designed based on the regional inspiration from where the olive oil hails. We taste the samples together, which are sometimes a custom blend from a single producer, or just a single cultivar from a specific tank. We also include a scroll that is co-written by Action and myself, as well as some other fun things. In the past, we’ve done a zine that included three recipes and photographs. My job is to provide a service and be the anchor for Action’s creativity and taste.
Can you tell us about your most recent Action Bronson collaboration drop?
This was our sixth olive oil together and it sold out in just 90 minutes. We have done oils from Italy, Spain, Chile, South Africa in the past, and this one happened to be from Frantoio Franci in Tuscany. They are one of the top producers in Tuscany, and we’ve done two prior Grove and Vine releases with them. Producer Giorgio Franci has continued his father’s tradition in Montenero D’Orcia. Not only is the oil incredible, but the place is also beautiful. This collaboration includes a nice print of Action’s label art that can be framed.
How can people purchase your oil or a membership?
Our products can be purchased through our website, www.groveandvine.com.