Farm info

Fazenda Cotrim e D’Alessandro is located in the city of Manhumirim in the Matas de Minas region. The farm was born from the union between the traditional family agriculture of Luci Cotrim and the innovator’s spirit of the Italian immigrant Mario D’Alessandro. The coffee farm’s history captures the spirit of dedication that persists today.

On July 22nd, 1949, a ship sailed from Genoa, Italy to Brazil carrying hundreds of Italian immigrants who had survived WWII. Among them was Mario D’Alessandro, carrying with him a dream of conquering the world. After disembarking on the Brazilian coast, he crossed overland to settle in Manhumirim. He set up a small business making copper pots and in his spare time ventured on foot or on horseback through the trails in the mountains. Through his wanderings, he fell in love with planting coffee. Every day he crossed the city on a bicycle, carrying seedlings to his property where he began planting in the 1970s. Years later, a work accident took his life and the dream of producing coffee was left to his partner and son: Sergio.

Sergio is passionate about mountain coffee plantations and the flavors and qualities they produce. After earning his degree in agronomy, Sergio returned to the farm to continue the work his parents started. He tripled his father’s production levels while remaining devoted to modernized ways of manual production. With innovative production techniques and a focus on producing specialty coffees, he always looks for the balance between quality and sustainability. The challenges are numerous given the manual production on the farm’s mountainous terrain, but Sergio’s exuberance for the beauty of the natural world and the satisfaction that comes from finding joy in one’s work provide the necessary motivation to elevate the farm to pass it to his children and future generations of the Cotrim e D’Alessandro family. He is proud to have made his father’s dream come true. Today, it is the coffee that travels by ship to other countries including those in Europe, to the D’Alessandro’s old family lands.

Fazenda Cotrim e D’Alessandro is part of the Minas Coffee Origins initiative. Minas Coffee Origins are controlled origins that take specialty coffee to the next level. Controlled Origins are the product of the “terroir” produced in a demarcated area by the soil, climate, and topography characteristics combined with the production traditions of coffee growers.

These factors together generate coffee with inherent characteristics of the territory. To guarantee its authenticity, it must be produced following the official production process and controlled by an officially recognized association committed to help growers and the development of the coffee region.

Watch a video interview with Sergio (in Portuguese!) to see his family’s farm and land.