A LIFE DEDICATED TO ART…DEDICATING ART TO LIFE. ARTIST SANDRO CHIA DIVIDES TIME BETWEEN NEW YORK TRANSVANGUARD AND VINEYARDS IN BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO. A NEW “MULTIMEDIA” WINERY IN THE WORKS

It is not surprising for those who know him that Sandro Chia’s favorite artist is Leonardo da Vinci; the assonances between the two geniuses of creativity are more than one might think. Both Tuscans, Florentine Chia and the Renaissance artist da Vinci, made art a modus vivendi, choosing not to specialize in just one of its forms, but to dedicate their lives to experimenting all possibilities. Painter, sculptor, writer, and architect, Leonardo owes his fame not only to his art works but also to the numerous experiments, incredibly ahead of his times, like the flying machine, or his studies in the Vitruvian Man, also know as the “canon”, or the perfect model for the reproduction of the human body. The fixation with images has also characterized the procedures for Chia: father of transvanguardism, a movement for which he is an exponent together with Cucchi, Clemente, De Maria, Paladino, he began with painting (which is still his true love) and then moved on to sculpture and mosaics, then on to experiments in video images, conceived as a modern mosaic made up of pixels rather than glass.
But Chia has decided to go beyond even this and to attempt the application of art to a craft that has long been considered technical and manual: winemaking. “Wine is a machine for thinking, for reasoning” - declared Chia in an interview with WineNews - “it exists in mythology, like oil, painting, primordial elements, good companions for man, in the sense of humanity”. The rapport between art and wine is so ancient that it is lost in the night of the ages: always considered one of the main sources of inspiration of artists and poets, the nectar of the gods has alternated over the centuries in its role as intellectual election with that of subject represented in art. “A painting, like wine, creates the mental condition to tell a story, so it is not strange, therefore, the choice to invest in a sector that at first sight seems to have very little to do with the art world”.
The debut of this artist-winemaker, 58 years old, married to Marella Caracciolo who have two children together (Chia has two more from a previous marriage in the U.S.) re-evokes the stories of the great art geniuses and of the self made man. He arrived in New York in 1979 with his paintings rolled up and in hand because he couldn’t afford to ship them, then only to be refused by galleries because he was completely unknown. Just a few months later, however, an enthusiastic Andy Warhol would discover his talent and began advising the acquisition of Chia’s works even to the likes of Mick Jagger, the mythical leader of the Rolling Stones. In just a few years Sandro Chia would become one of the most sought after artists in New York.
His enological adventure, on the other hand, would begin by chance in 1984 with the acquisition of the Castello Romitorio in Montalcino (www.castelloromitorio.com), a 12th century castle that was rather run down and surrounded by 22 hectares of land. After very long and large restoration works, the Romitorio today boasts of a renewed splendor and presents itself to visitors as a true artist’s forge, which hides underground, in the guise of a cavern, a super modern multimedia winery.
The company’s pride and joy, the winery, is almost complete and is truly an artistic laboratory. Personally designed by Chia, he wanted it to be the source of inspiration for the creation of wines. As well as also being the most technologically advanced it could possibly be to guarantee the absolute quality of production. Set on two levels that host the different stages of the production process, the 1700 square meter space includes a room of ultra modern design dedicated exclusively to the fermentation in stainless steel and a cool environment used to refine the Brunello in French oak barrels.
The walls, that include a bronze door decorated with a bas-relief similar to that of the Baptistery of St. John of Florence, are enriched with screens, mosaics and sculptures that, together with the bottles of wine, bring the wine cellar to life. The family business is run by Sandro Chia and his son, Filippo Chia, the very young executive director of the Castello Romitorio, who follows choices of highest quality from the beginning to the end of the process resulting, among other things, in a very limited annual production. Of the 22 hectares that make up the estate, about 21 are vineyards. From these vineyards 3,000 to 5,000 bottles of Brunello di Montalcino Reserve are produced.
Only two vintages have been produced to date, 1997 and 1999, which are two years that have been recognized as extraordinary and given the 5 star award by the Brunello di Montalcino Consortium. The total production of Brunello di Montalcino fluctuates between 10,000 and 28,000 bottles per year; Rosso di Montalcino almost never surpasses 10,000. Slightly higher with 12,000 bottles, but still considered a niche production, is the Romito di Romitorio, a DOC red blend of 60% Sangiovese, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Canaiolo.
A visitor to the Castello di Romitorio can’t help but be fascinated. Apart from the objective beauty of the place, and of the countryside that surrounds it, there is also an atmosphere that is truly special, which holds the spectator in a sort of dream-like dimension. But not all are lucky enough to visit this hidden corner of Tuscany. Those who can’t visit, have the not so bad consolation of tasting the wines produced by the company. Buying a bottle of Brunello or Rosso di Montalcino by Sandro Chia does not only mean a reward for the palate but also means acquiring an artist’s label. The labels themselves, in fact, are true works of art designed by Chia, adding that much more pleasure to owning a bottle of one of his wines.
An interesting side note: the labels of Morellino di Scansano produced by Ghiaccioforte (www.ghiaccioforte.it), the estate in the Maremma that was also acquired by Chia, are signed by Mimmo Paladino, another exponent of the transvanguard movement, and friend of Chia. The life, therefore, of Sandro Chia can be defined as a life dedicated to art… in which art is dedicated to wine.

Castello di Romitorio – A Work in Progress for a “Multimedia Winery”…
“I have material on harvesting, on wine production, then there are the shots of the construction of the winery, the digging, entering into the center of the earth, it’s like a cavern, which serves to protect the process and the product…”. The new multimedia winery of Sandro Chia, among the vineyards of Brunello at the Castello Romitorio, near Montalcino, will be officially presented in July 2007.
“The video will be accompanied with a mosaic: the pixel as a material that the eye interprets an image out of”. Chia continues, “There will be still images, more or less unchanging, which I would like to pair up with images in movement, with the idea of closing a circle, then the still image goes into movement and that in movement is impressed on one’s memory, as if it has stopped. It is undecided which is still and which is in movement, kind of like wine…”.
Chia loves Brunello and his new construction: “According to me, it is very archetypal, a place of alchemy, things that you can control, but up to a certain point, which is always imponderable. It is a game of Chinese boxes: in the bottle, in the barrel. There are many internals, a world that evolves, is condensed, that is sublimed, that is distilled. It acquires its own personality and produces this machine for thinking, reasoning, that is wine. Processes that have always accompanied man” concludes Chia - “it exists in mythology, like oil, painting, primordial elements, the good companions of man, in the sense of humanity”.