CRU MUSICALE – Premium Olive Oil Packaging

CRU MUSICALE – Premium Olive Oil Packaging

How do you translate the harmony of an extra virgin olive oil into an object?

CRU MUSICALE, a project by Frantoio Sant’Agata d’Oneglia, takes shape around this question. The answer brings together the Mela family’s olive oil heritage, Gianluca Biscalchin’s imagination, GRUPPO SAIDA’s Elegance Horizon bottle design and ATIU’s decoration technology.

The starting point is the Ligurian landscape: olive trees with distinctive forms, shaped by time, between the sea and the hills above Imperia. A landscape with a rhythm of its own becomes the subject of a visual narrative celebrating the Mela family’s passion for art and music.

From Sensory Profile to Visual Language

Created by master olive oil maker Antonio Mela, CRU MUSICALE brings together Taggiasca and Frantoio olives in a composition of seven “notes”: aroma, fruitiness, sweetness, pungency, bitterness, artichoke and almond.

This spectrum of sensations finds its visual counterpart in the illustrations. For the first edition, Gianluca Biscalchin imagines an orchestra of anthropomorphic olive trees: canopies become heads, trunks suggest bodies and gestures, and musical instruments give each figure a voice.

Each tree retains its individuality while contributing to a collective harmony. The same relationship connects the oil’s different nuances: distinct elements that find meaning through their balance.

The pink background sets the project’s joyful tone. Against it, green canopies and dark musician silhouettes create a visual sequence that invites people to look closely and turn the bottle in their hands. Music becomes a gesture, a character, a detail waiting to be discovered.

Horizon: Premium Olive Oil Bottle Collection

The chosen canvas for this interpretation is Elegance Horizon, a GRUPPO SAIDA bottle with compact proportions and a contemporary profile.

Its body provides a generous surface for the illustrated composition, while the soft shoulders and signature Horizon recess introduce variations in the volume. The graphics engage with a distinctive form, creating a dialogue between illustration and structure.

The recess visually defines the lower section of the bottle and its transition towards the base, where the CRU MUSICALE name appears. The result integrates the container’s structure with the graphic hierarchy, keeping both the illustration and the product identity clearly legible.

The cylindrical outer packaging echoes the pink background and olive tree orchestra, extending the narrative beyond the bottle and creating continuity between the two objects.

Sublimation: proprietary decoration technology

The bottle decoration is produced by ATIU using its proprietary, patented sublimation technology.

This heat-based process reproduces the graphics on the bottle’s surface at a resolution of up to 1,200 dpi. The decoration follows the volume from base to neck, embracing its curves and recess without labels or seams.

This technical capability is integral to the design: it allows the illustration to unfold across a three-dimensional surface while preserving the clarity of the small details that give each character its personality. The bottle’s glossy finish adds reflections and shifts of light to the pink background, while the outer packaging expresses the same visual language on a matte surface.

An Identity Open to New Interpretations

Presented during Milan Design Week, CRU MUSICALE marks the beginning of an evolving project. Each year, Frantoio Sant’Agata d’Oneglia will invite a different artist to create a new interpretation of the bottle.

The first edition therefore establishes a guiding principle: to make the complexity of the oil and the culture behind it visible through an artist’s perspective.

An object designed to hold an extra virgin olive oil, but also to extend its story. Before tasting, through sight; afterwards, in the memory of those who choose to keep it.

Credits

Client and project concept: Frantoio Sant’Agata d’Oneglia — Mela Family

Artistic interpretation and illustrations: Gianluca Biscalchin

Bottle: Elegance Horizon — GRUPPO SAIDA

Bottle decoration: ATIU — Sublimation