The most philosophically charged Super Tuscan of the year bears the signature of performance art’s most radical voice
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ew combinations in the contemporary cultural landscape feel quite as charged as the one Ornellaia has just unveiled: one of Tuscany’s most celebrated estates and one of the most radical and influential artists of the past half-century. The 2023 vintage, released under the concept of ‘La Vitalità’ — Vitality — carries on its special edition labels the visual interpretation of Marina Abramović, the Serbian-born creator who transformed her own body into artistic material and who appears on virtually every list of the most significant living artists on the planet.
To appreciate the full weight of this project, one must go back to 2009, when the estate — situated near the medieval village of Bolgheri on the Tyrrhenian coast of Tuscany — launched the initiative known as Vendemmia d’Artista. The programme, now in its eighteenth edition, rests on a simple but elegant conceptual premise: each year, the estate’s technical director selects a single word that defines the character of the vintage, and a prominent contemporary artist is invited to translate that word into a visual proposition, which is then realised on the labels of a limited-edition run of large-format bottles. Production is restricted to 111 large-format bottles — 100 double magnums, 10 imperials and one salmanazar — each hand-numbered and signed by the artist. Since 2012, every standard case of Ornellaia has also included one bottle carrying the artistic label of the corresponding edition.
Over the years, the roster of artists who have contributed to the project reads like a survey of the most sought-after names in contemporary art: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Ernesto Neto, Rebecca Horn, Joseph Kosuth, amongst many others. The addition of Abramović to the eighteenth edition elevates the programme to an entirely new dimension, given the cultural and media gravitational pull that the artist carries with her.
The word chosen for the 2023 harvest — ‘La Vitalità’ — responds to a very specific reading of what occurred in Ornellaia’s vineyards that year. According to technical director Marco Balsimelli, the vintage was shaped by an almost perfect accord between nature and human intervention. A mild winter encouraged an early awakening of the vines; spring rains replenished the soil’s water reserves; and the cool nights of September preserved the acidity and aromatic complexity of the clusters. The resulting wine, as Balsimelli describes it, radiates energy whilst simultaneously surprising with its elegance and long, sustained finish, supported by silky tannins with a pronounced Mediterranean character.
For Abramović, vitality is anything but an abstract notion. Her entire body of work orbits around the limits of the human body, the energy that circulates between people, physical presence as a form of knowledge. Her decision to interpret Ornellaia’s leitmotif through these labels connects almost naturally with that philosophy: the labels place the creative energy of art in dialogue with the vital energy of viticulture, establishing a parallel between two forms of expression that draw from the same source.
The worldwide premiere of Ornellaia 2023 was held in Vienna, with the Italian market release date set for the 1st of April 2026. The proceeds from the charitable auction of the large-format bottles — handled by some of the world’s most prestigious auction houses — will be donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, with whom Ornellaia has maintained a steady collaboration since 2019 to support cultural accessibility programmes and the conservation of key works in their collection.
The media resonance of this collaboration has been considerable. On social media channels dedicated to art and to wine, the announcement generated a wave of engagement that stretched well beyond the usual circle of Super Tuscan collectors. The combination of two brands of such weight — Ornellaia in the world of premium wine, Abramović in contemporary art — has succeeded in carrying the story across sectoral boundaries and into audiences who do not typically follow wine news. A feat that is, in essence, precisely the objective the project has always set itself.
Sobrelías Redacción
Sobrelías Redacción