With great pomp and circumstance, the new vintage of Ornellaia, the 2019, one of the world’s most famous wines from Bolgheri, was presented on February 9 in Tuscany. Swedish artists Natalie Djurberg and Hans Berg designed this year’s labels.
In 2009, Ornellaia, together with the owner family Marchesi Frescobaldi, started the project “Vendemmia di artista”. A project that involves choosing a word each year to describe the new vintage of Ornellaia. The word is then interpreted by a renowned international artist who is tasked to design the labels and decorate the bottles. Some of the specially made bottles are then sold at auction, and the proceeds are donated to charity.
Force
The 2019 vintage is described with the word “vigore”, which means “power”. 2019 was a year when the wine producers had to make an effort to calibrate the vines’ vigour. It was a year with significant variation in the weather, the cold was interspersed with wet periods, and the summer offered long periods of heat and drought. After a changing spring and an almost perfect summer, the lower temperatures at the end of September resulted in wines with great finesse and intense aromas.
The labels for the new vintage have been designed by Swedish Nathalie Djurberg, a Swedish video artist who lives and works in Berlin, and Hans Berg, artist, music producer, live artist. They have focused their work on the theme of metamorphosis, the cyclical essence of nature and its transformation, and on the relationship between man and earth.
Soil
“The inspiration came from the earth, from the soil,” said Nathalie Djurberg, “from what is beneath, which is normally considered ugly, dirty, but which is the source of life. The human hand gives the earth shape, from which something is born, which then becomes art. We wanted to reinforce this hidden beauty, this ‘secret’ that we rarely think about,” she said.
The larger formats will be auctioned at Sotheby’s during an online auction scheduled for October 5 to 19, 2022. Proceeds will be donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in support of the “Mind’s Eye” project, which aims to make art accessible to the visually impaired at the Guggenheim Museums in Venice, New York and Bilbao.
“It is a great satisfaction to see the project grow internationally and to know that the work we do gives blind or visually impaired people the opportunity to discover art through senses other than just sight,” said Giovanni Geddes da Filicaja, from Ornellaia.
Wine
Ornellaia first appeared on the market in 1985. It is a blend of cabernet sauvignon (62%), merlot (31%), cabernet franc (3%) and petit verdot (4%). The 2019 is leaner and more elegant than previous vintages of Ornellaia that have played more on power. Ornellaia 2019 is dark ruby red, intense aromas of dark and red berries, muted herbal tones and hints of cocoa and light leather. It is full of ripe tannins and juicy fruit, with a lively acidity that lengthens and extends. A wine to drink now or, for those who like aged wines, you can easily forget Ornellaia for a decade or two down in the wine cellar.
