`Oil, Art and Culture in Liguria - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Oil, Art and Culture in Liguria

By Luciana Squadrilli
Jul. 21, 2014 16:29 UTC
Illustration by Milo Manara

Franco Boeri Roi is well known as Eataly’s oil expert. The Ligurian pro­ducer has been cho­sen by Oscar Farinetti as his main con­sul­tant on extra vir­gin olive oil and he was asked to per­son­ally select the prod­ucts to be put on sale and offered at the tables in the dif­fer­ent Eataly shops all over the world.

Famously atten­tive to mar­ket­ing and inno­va­tions, Boeri Roi often has some­thing new to launch, like the ​“walk­ing cone” filled with Taggiasca pick­led olives that he brought to Vinitaly 2014 in Verona in April.

But Boeri Roi is also active in pro­mot­ing and endors­ing his region and its prod­ucts and, together with his wife and fel­low pro­ducer Rossella Boeri Roi, he is the main orga­nizer of the annual event Bistrot dell’Ulivo.

Roi’s oil mill is located in the heart of Valle Argentina, in the coun­try­side of Sanremo and the ele­gant Riviera di Ponente, where sits Badalucco — a small vil­lage sur­rounded by twisted olive trees and dry-stone walls.

Every year, Badalucco hosts the event ded­i­cated to local prod­ucts and Italian cul­ture. Celebrities and per­son­al­i­ties of Italian busi­ness, cul­ture, music and arts are invited to join the event — whose slo­gan is ​“cold press, free thoughts” — to dis­cuss oil mak­ing, agri­cul­ture, enter­prise and land­scape in Valle Argentina but also music, peace and tourism.

This year, among the oth­ers were Oscar Farinetti – who announced the open­ing of a sec­ond Eataly in New York in August 2015 (near the Ground Zero area, ded­i­cated to Peace). Illustrator and direc­tor Sergio Staino, singer and song-writer Gianmaria Testa and archi­tect Stefano Boeri took part at the event held on the 20th and 21st July.

The annual ​“friend­ship dec­la­ra­tion” was given to Paolo Raibaudo, a local olive-grower and unwea­ried chair­man of the Valle Argentina Consortium, who has put his heart and soul into pro­mot­ing the area, and encour­aged coop­er­a­tion between local farm­ers, crafts­men, tourism oper­a­tors and fac­to­ries.

Another tra­di­tion is the draw­ing made by a famous Italian illus­tra­tor to rep­re­sent the event. This year, it was illus­tra­tor and designer Milo Manara who donated the sketch rep­re­sent­ing one of his iconic charm­ing girls tast­ing an olive to Roi. ​“We are par­tic­u­larly proud of this present that Maestro Manara gave us,” Franco Boeri Roi said before the event. ​“For us it is an honor and at the same time a fur­ther moti­va­tion to do our best”.

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