Italian farming specialist · Farm transformation
Marco Rappazzo
Sicily is in his blood. He brings its farming back to life and Italian standards to the world.
#farmingwithmarcoAgricultural Steward & Head Farmer, Castruriali
Marco Rappazzo is an Italian agricultural specialist and farm transformation lead. Born into a Sicilian family from Castroreale and a construction project manager in London, he brings a farmer's hands and a project manager's discipline to the land: restoring abandoned olive groves, raising standards and seeing every project through, from Sicily to rural Pakistan.
- CastrorealeFamily roots
- 2023Co-founds Castruriali
- 4 continentsTravelled and learnt
- 2 luxury villasBuilt and run
- Sicily · PakistanProjects
Chapter one · The roots
Sicily is in his blood
Marco's parents are from Castroreale, a medieval hill town in the province of Messina. So were their parents and their parents before them. Marco grew up in Milan, but every summer the family came home to Sicily. Every summer Castroreale became his whole world.
He remembers the streets full of life: children running between the stone houses until long after dark, neighbours calling from their balconies, grandparents on chairs outside their doors, the whole town out in the cool of the evening. He learnt to help in the fields with his family and the farmers they had known for generations, pruning, picking and carrying crates beside old men who seemed to know every tree by name.
| Role | Agricultural Steward and Head Farmer, Castruriali |
|---|---|
| Expertise | Farm transformation · olive grove restoration · agricultural project management · quality and provenance standards |
| Roots | A Sicilian family from Castroreale, Messina; grew up in Milan with every summer in Sicily |
| Career | Fruit and vegetable supply; construction project manager in London |
| 2023 | Co-founds Castruriali |
| 2026 | Takes up farming in Castroreale professionally |
| Projects | Castroreale, Sicily · Golden Multan, rural Punjab, Pakistan |
| Hospitality | Managing Director of Village Malú: two luxury villas he built in Castroreale |
Chapter two · Nonna's table
Raised on Sicilian farm food, not fast food
While other children grew up on McDonald's and KFC, Marco grew up at his nonnas' tables. The food was simple Sicilian farm cooking, made from whatever the land gave that week: aubergines from the garden, capers picked from the old stone walls, sun-ripened tomatoes, wild fennel, bread from the oven and good olive oil over everything.
Aubergines slow-cooked into caponata, sweet and sour with capers and olives. Pasta alla Norma on a Sunday. Nothing out of a packet, nothing flown in from the other side of the world. It was the real Mediterranean diet before anyone called it that. It taught him the lesson he farms by today: great food starts with the land and the people who care for it.
Cook it yourself: Sicilian recipes from our kitchen.
Chapter three · The quiet
When the summers fell silent
Then, year by year, it changed. The children he had played with grew up and left for work, as young people have from Sicily's hill towns for generations. The old farmers grew older. Shutters stayed closed. Olive trees that had been tended for centuries were left to the brambles. An estimated three million now stand abandoned across Sicily.
The town that had meant so much to him was losing the life and character he loved. Marco knew he had to do something.
“Our work begins in Castroreale, where we are bringing abandoned groves back into care, tree by tree.”
Marco Rappazzo
Chapter four · Built in London
A project manager with a farmer's hands
Marco has always been happiest working with his hands and out in the field rather than behind a computer. After his studies he worked in fruit and vegetable supply, close to the growers and the produce he grew up with. In London he became a construction project manager: plans, budgets, deadlines, teams on site and the standards that make a building last.
Through it all he kept going back to Sicily, helping his family and the local farmers through the seasons. That rare combination, the discipline of a project manager and the instincts of someone raised among farmers, is what he brings to every grove and every project.
Chapter five · The traveller
Learning from the whole world
Marco is a traveller at heart. He has journeyed across Europe, Asia, North America and South America. Wherever he goes he seeks out the people who grow and make the food: the markets, the farms, the kitchens. He loves new cultures and new people, learns from all of them and brings the best ideas home to the hills of Castroreale.
Chapter six · How Castruriali began
A client, a best friend, a mission
Marco first met Yazdaan Hussain as a client. They became best friends. Then Marco showed him Sicily: the hill towns, the groves, the mill, the tables of people who had known his family for generations and the two luxury villas he had built in Castroreale. That trip sparked everything.
“The best part of my visit to Sicily was having Marco show me around. It was just never the same without Marco.”
Yazdaan Hussain · co-founder, Castruriali
Over long conversations about food, farming and Sicily they found they shared the same frustration: too much of what is sold as fine olive oil is built on marketing rather than on the land, the people and the craft behind it.
So they did something about it. In 2023 they founded Castruriali with Antonino “Nino” Mandanici and his son Giuseppe, to put quality, heritage and provenance back where they belong: first. Real olives from real Sicilian farms, made and hand-bottled in Castroreale, with nothing to hide. It was Marco's deep ties to the town that opened the doors.
Chapter seven · Agricultural Steward
A steward, not just a farmer
In 2026 Marco took up farming in Castroreale professionally, as Castruriali's Agricultural Steward and Head Farmer. A farmer works the land; a steward looks after it for the next generation. His year follows the olive: clearing and pruning trees left for decades, nursing them back to health and working side by side with local farmers whose knowledge of these hills goes back further than any book.
At harvest he is up the ladder with everyone else. In the groves around Castroreale, Marco picks the olives by hand, tree by tree, so the fruit reaches the mill whole and unbruised.
Restoration
Abandoned groves, back in care
Tree by tree, neglected groves around Castroreale are cleared, pruned and brought back into production.
The trees →Heritage
Saving the Castriciana Rapparina
Castroreale's own olive, known locally as Nustrali, is on the brink of extinction. Protecting and propagating it is at the heart of his work.
The Nustrali olive →Adoption
Your tree, in his care
Every adopted Castruriali tree is looked after by Marco. His signature is on every adoption certificate.
Adopt a tree →Farming transformation
Raising the standard, field by field
Marco's approach is simple to describe and hard to do: treat a farm the way a good project manager treats a build. Understand it properly, fix what is broken, set a standard everyone can see, train the people and deliver, every season.
Assess
Walk every hectare, every tree. Soil, water, varieties, the state of the trees and the habits of the people who work them.
Restore
Clear, prune and nurse neglected land back to health, keeping the old trees and native varieties that give a place its character.
Set the standard
Clear rules for how the harvest is picked, moved and milled and what the finished produce must meet, written down and checked.
Train
Teach the team by doing it beside them, in the field, until the standard is theirs and not his.
Deliver
Run it like a build: a plan, a budget, a timeline and a result, season after season.
From Sicily to Pakistan
Italian standards, rural Punjab
The same standards are now travelling. Through Golden Multan, a venture by the Castruriali Group, Marco brings Sicilian and Italian farming and food standards to rural Punjab, Pakistan. He trains the team by hand, works the mangoes himself and holds every step, from the orchard to the finished product, to the quality expected in Italy and Britain.
The aim is bigger than one product: to show what farms and producers in rural communities can achieve when they are given the same skills, standards and respect as the best in Europe. It also creates skilled work where it is needed most. More about the Castruriali Group.
Castruriali projects
Work with Marco
Marco's projects are part of Castruriali's mission. He wants to help people: farmers, estates, producers and communities in Italy and abroad who want to restore their land, transform how they farm and raise their standards.
Every project is held to the same line: true Italian craftsmanship, preserved and passed on. No shortcuts, no compromises, no selling out. If the work cannot be done properly, it is not done at all.
Olive grove restoration
Bringing abandoned and neglected groves back into production, from clearing and pruning to the first good harvest.
Farm transformation
Turning an under-performing farm into one that produces to a high standard every year, with the plan and the people to keep it there.
Quality and provenance
Standards for harvest, handling and milling so that what leaves the farm is traceable and worth its name.
Harvest and milling planning
Timing, crews, transport and the mill, organised so the fruit reaches the press at its best.
Team training
Hands-on training in Italian farming practice for farm teams in Italy and abroad.
International projects
Bringing Sicilian and Italian standards to farms and producers in emerging regions, as he does in Pakistan.
The host · Village Malú
Builder, host, holiday-maker
Restoring the groves is only half of it. Marco wants Castroreale full again: visitors in the streets, tables in the piazza and young people seeing a future in the town their families came from.
Marco puts his construction project management where his heart is. In the hills of Castroreale he built two luxury villas and, as Managing Director of Village Malú, he welcomes guests from all over the world: private pools, views over the Sicilian countryside and a host who knows everyone.
He is a holiday-maker in the truest sense. Guests do not just stay; Marco shows them his Sicily. The groves, the mill, the markets, the family kitchens and the places only locals know. Every visitor who leaves in love with Castroreale is one more reason for the town to come back to life. Walk the groves on a Castruriali experience or see Villa Malú.
“Every bottle you open helps keep them growing. You are part of that now.”
Marco Rappazzo · from the note in every bottle
In the groves
Harvest day with Marco
Crates, nets, ladders and the tractor: a day of the olive harvest in the groves around Castroreale.
Follow the groves
#farmingwithmarco
The harvest, the pruning, the restored groves, the projects abroad and life in Sicily through the seasons. Follow Marco's year and see your adopted tree grow.
Questions
About Marco
Who is Marco Rappazzo?
Marco Rappazzo is an Italian agricultural specialist, farm transformation lead and construction project manager from a Sicilian family in Castroreale, Messina. He is the Agricultural Steward and Head Farmer of Castruriali, which he co-founded in 2023. He brings Sicilian and Italian farming standards to projects from Sicily to rural Pakistan.
What does Marco Rappazzo do?
He restores abandoned olive groves, runs the harvest and raises farming standards on the land Castruriali cares for in Castroreale, including protecting the near-extinct Castriciana Rapparina olive. Beyond Sicily he leads the standards behind Golden Multan in Pakistan, training teams to Italian quality.
Can Marco Rappazzo help with my farm or project?
Yes. Through Castruriali, Marco works with farmers, estates, producers and communities to restore neglected olive groves, transform how a farm works, raise quality and provenance standards, plan the harvest and milling and train teams, always preserving true Italian craftsmanship. Write to hello@castruriali.com with “Working with Marco” in the subject.
Where is the oldest Castriciana Rapparina (Nustrali) olive tree?
Probably at Villa Malú in Castroreale, on Marco Rappazzo’s land, where it stands right beside the villa. Thought to be the oldest Nustrali tree in the town, it is around 200 years old and still gives some of the finest olives in Castroreale. The Castriciana Rapparina is on the brink of extinction, which is why protecting trees like it is at the heart of his work.
What is farm transformation?
Taking a farm that is neglected, under-performing or stuck in old habits and turning it into one that produces to a high standard every year: assessing the land and the trees, restoring them, setting clear standards for the harvest and the produce, training the people and following it through season after season.
What is Marco doing in Pakistan?
Through Golden Multan, a venture by the Castruriali Group, Marco brings Sicilian and Italian farming and food standards to rural Punjab: training the team by hand, raising standards from the orchard to the finished product and creating skilled work in rural communities.
Where is Marco from?
Sicily is in his blood: his parents and grandparents are from Castroreale. Marco grew up in Milan and spent every childhood summer in Castroreale. He worked in fruit and vegetable supply, then became a construction project manager in London. In 2026 he took up farming in Castroreale professionally as Castruriali’s Agricultural Steward. He has travelled across Europe, Asia, North America and South America.
Can I visit Marco in Sicily?
Yes. Walk the groves on a Castruriali experience, adopt an olive tree and see it in person or stay at Village Malú in Castroreale: two luxury villas Marco built and runs as Managing Director, where he shows guests his Sicily.
What is Village Malú?
Village Malú is a pair of luxury holiday villas in the hills of Castroreale, Sicily, built by Marco Rappazzo and run by him as Managing Director, with private pools and views over the Sicilian countryside.
How can I follow his work?
Follow #farmingwithmarco for the groves, the harvest, the projects and life in Sicily through the seasons.
More: our farmers · the estate · the mill · adopt an olive tree · Sicilian recipes