California Olive Oil Pioneer McEvoy Ranch Continues to Innovate with New Flavors

After 32 years, the Petaluma producer is still setting standards from orchard to oil.

McEvoy Early Landscape Courtesy of McEvoy Ranch

Breaking barriers and setting standards was a way of life for Nan McEvoy. The granddaughter of Michael De Young, who founded the San Francisco Chronicle in 1865, the newspaper heiress could have taken the easy path as a young woman. Instead, she pushed her father to let her work at the paper as a news reporter—a rarity for women at that time. After retiring from the company as chairman of the board at age 72, she bought the 550-acre property near the Sonoma-Marin border that would become McEvoy Ranch. She went on to become one of the modern pioneers of Northern California’s olive oil industry.

History of McEvoy Ranch

“Mrs. McEvoy founded the ranch in 1990 with the intention of just having a place for her grandchildren to come out of the city and play together,” says Samantha Dorsey, president of McEvoy Ranch. “Then she determined that she needed an agricultural purpose for the property.”

After reading the book The Feast of the Olive by Maggie Klein, McEvoy knew just what that purpose would be. She called renowned Italian agronomist Maurizio Castelli to ask about the best varieties to plant, and three days later, he arrived at the ranch to advise her in person. Castelli became McEvoy’s expert guide, helping her import her first 3,000 trees from Tuscany. Not everything went smoothly.

“The customs brokers took all the name tags off the trees when they arrived in San Francisco, so we didn’t know which varieties were which,” says Dorsey. “Our first orchard is a complete hodgepodge, a higgledy-piggledy mix of all the different varieties.”

Over the next couple of years, once the varieties had been properly identified, McEvoy developed a system to propagate new trees from cuttings, and sold them to growers across the region.

“We started this enormous nursery business that really helped jumpstart the entire modern California olive industry,” says Dorsey. “In fact, hundreds and thousands of trees throughout the Western United States were propagated from those original 3,000 trees. People used to ask, aren’t you worried about creating your competition? She would just look over and say, ‘We still make the best olive oil in the world.’”

McEvoy Ranch is now home to 14,000 olive trees, including six varieties from Tuscany and one from Puglia. All 50 acres are certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers. The varieties of olives in their blend includes frantoio, leccino, pendolino, moraiolo, maurino, coratina, and leccio del corno.

From Orchard to Oil: Milled On Site

Samantha Dorsey Courtesy of McEvoy Ranch

Though McEvoy passed away in 2015 at age 95, her exacting standards continue at the ranch, now run by her son Nion and his adult children. To control quality from orchard to oil, every step of production takes place on the ranch, from growing to bottling.

“One of the keys to making high quality olive oil is minimizing the time between the tree and the mill, so we have a huge advantage here because we have a mill on site,” says Dorsey. “We harvest the olives and within hours they are being milled into oil.”

Once the olives are “combed” from the trees using harvesting rakes, the fruit goes into a hopper to be washed, then into a blade mill and crushed into paste—pits and all. The paste then flows into a machine called a malaxer, which kneads the paste to increase the oil percentage and help develop its flavors and aromas.

Then it’s on to a centrifuge that separates the oil from the water and solids, and then to yet another machine to wick away any remaining moisture that could destabilize the oil. At the end of the process, pure golden olive oil flows from the spigot.

McEvoy’s flagship olive oil offerings include the Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil; Olio Nuovo (meaning “new oil” in Italian), which is the year’s very first olive oil; and a Limited Edition blend that changes with each harvest.

An Expanded Line of Flavored Oils

McEvoy Olive Oil Lineup Courtesy of McEvoy Ranch

In recent years, McEvoy has added several flavored oils to the lineup, which are made by crushing whole fruits, herbs, and other ingredients together with the olives. This co-milling or “fusion” process distinguishes McEvoy’s oils from those that are infused with flavorings after the oil has been produced. Among the varieties are more traditional flavors such as Lemon, Basil, Garlic, Herbes de Provence, and Blood Orange, as well as unexpected offerings like Chai Spice, Ginger Turmeric, and Jalapeño.

“That’s part of the beauty of being in California and what allows us to be such exceptional creators of olive oil,” says Dorsey. “We have such a diverse food culture here in the Bay Area, so we’re able to draw inspiration from so many different [cuisines].”

Dorsey says she loves to drizzle the Chai Spice olive oil over Moroccan-style roasted carrots, and staff members will even use it to top vanilla ice cream. The Ginger Turmeric oil is her favorite finishing oil for baked cauliflower or carrot soup.

Another new offering, McEvoy’s Cooking Olive Oil, is an extra virgin oil designed for the stovetop or oven.

“The difference with the cooking oil is twofold,” Dorsey explains. “First, it’s a little cheaper than the finishing oils, so everyone can feel comfortable just glugging it right into the sauce pan. It’s also a little bit milder in flavor, so you can cook any dish with it and the olive oil won’t take over. It’s meant to be more of a supporting actress than a lead actress who steals the show.”

That said, she also recommends cooking with some of the flavored oils, such as the Basil and Lemon. “If I don’t have a lemon on the counter and I don’t want to go and find one,” she says, “I just sauté with the lemon olive oil and it just brings that nice brightness into the dish.”

Where to Find McEvoy Ranch Oils

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As a small producer, McEvoy Ranch does not distribute its olive oils in stores nationally. However, they’re easy to find in gourmet markets in California, through the McEvoy website—you can even join an olive oil club to receive regular shipments—and at the ranch. McEvoy also offers its own wines sourced from vineyards in the Petaluma Gap and other regions in nearby Sonoma County, along with an array of gourmet pantry items made with ingredients from neighboring farms.

While public access to the ranch was not available during McEvoy’s lifetime, today guests can visit the estate to experience tastings of olive oil and wine, or take a walking tour that includes access to Nan’s treasured vegetable garden, Japanese-style pavilion, and the charming Victorian house that now serves as an events space.

As the business continues to evolve and grow, McEvoy Ranch remains a pioneer, innovator and standard-setter among Northern California’s artisan olive oil producers.