The aesthetic side of wine: adorned with excellence
Taken from the Greek word “aisthesis” or feeling, aesthetic value is the spiritual content of an object. A sign that it possesses the qualities of structure, balance, harmony and elegance and, by displaying these qualities, it arouses the feelings that make it so appreciated. This is the web of values that gives an object aesthetic worth.
Wine must be regarded as an object of value, not just a product of nature, and so it is judged within the sphere of aesthetic values, centred on the object itself and not its function: tasting is designed to appreciate the aesthetic value of the wine through the spiritual understanding of the values the object represents.
For whoever tastes wine rather than just consumes it, wine presents a magnificent multiplicity of natural aromas and tastes, and surprises by never being the same since it changes the moment, the state of mind, the food that it accompanies.
The complex signals that wine triggers in our minds excite visions of effort, science and patience, commitment, willpower, synergies, all feelings that must be codified and channelled through its livery since this is what stimulates the eye, the principle and most sensitive tool in arousing desire.
“Le Super Tre Stelle della Guida Oro Vini di Veronelli 2013”
Ferrari - Fratelli Lunelli - Trento Brut Riserva del Fondatore Giulio Ferrari 2002
Touring Club - Vinibuoni d’Italia 2013 - I Vini della Corona
La Viarte - Colli Orientali del Friuli Doc Schioppettino di Prepotto 2009
Manuele Pirovano, sommelier to Davide Oldani, cellar manager of the Ristorante D’O, confirms that one of the first lessons given at catering school was “the Customer, first of all, drinks the label”. The characteristic “pop cuisine” of Oldani dictates choices aimed at appreciating and sustaining the content of the preparations and wine has a fundamental role in this. The wine is the object that activates the sensory receptors, the eye immediately scans the shape of the bottle, reads the aesthetics of the label and, unconsciously, determines the quality of the content. This is a choice that incorporates the thesis, the material object, the bottle, that grades the quality, and the antithesis, the spiritual sensation that suggests the values incorporated in the object.
The female public pays more attention to the ritual and intrinsic fascination of the choice of wine, while men more critically observe the specific product. They read the label and judge its style in a more detached way, displaying a degree of expertise that, perhaps, they often do not possess, and they don’t let the fascination exerted by the aesthetics to come through.
Manuele says the shape of the bottle has value as a “trademark” that determines the worth of the content, a persuasive, inevitable process of communication in which customers take in what corresponds to the expected aesthetic of a sublime content.
I Cinque Grappoli - Duemiavini 2013 - Ais Bibenda
Ca’ Marcanda - Bolgheri Rosso Camarcanda 2009
Cinque bottiglie - Guida de l’Espresso
Prunotto - Barolo Bussia 2008
How is this type of finery created? Chiara Boni, a stylist in her adopted city of Milan but Tuscan by birth, talks of creation as a process of cultural and stylistic refinement, sustained by the understanding and sharing of values, which is displayed in a product that, thus adorned, leaves no doubt about the qualities of the content.
“The work of stylistic refinement of a garment arises together with the idea of the woman who wears it”: the emotions triggered by the fabric, the search to identify it, the refinement of collections that follows the thought, the development of expectations and requirements, season after season, is an evolving continuum harmonised in a direct relationship that acquires the most sophisticated nuances. “The intrinsic value of a garment lies in the capacity to appreciate its “content”. A skilful cut emphasises the personality, the “taste” and the “femininity”.
So the substantial values of a lofty wine, the outcome of effort and hard work aimed at attaining excellence, can be lost if the wine is adorned with a generic livery, not a skilful style that enhances its physical properties and character. Dressing up the wine in stylish garb means capitalising and consolidating the value of the work. It is the final step in the process of creation that really completes a wine.
Tre bicchieri - Gambero Rosso
Enrico Serafino - Alta Langa brut Zero Cantina Maestra 2006
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