Painting with wine: the art you don't expect

Today we'll talk about wine in a different way, touching on the alternative use of our favorite nectar and the world of art.

You have no idea how many magnificent things can be done with wine, when we decide not to drink it all!

To do all this we had a little chat with Maurizia Gentili, discovering a "world" made of nature, territory, and brushstrokes.

Maurizia is an artist from Emilia, who defines herself as "piacentina doc", she works in symbiosis with nature and the territory, bringing natural pigments and saps onto paper.

Our artist comes from a family of farming origins that passed on to her a love for her land.
A past as a little grape picker and grape crusher!
Time has passed but the love for life and for the hilly landscape are still alive, perhaps more than ever!

Her background and friendship with the winemakers of the area has stimulated her creativity, giving life to works of art in wine!
"The use of the natural pigments of Gutturnio, the wine par excellence of Piacenza, has allowed me to experiment and deepen this technique, letting me play with other components such as etching, gold leaf, pastels: a triumph of nuances, plays of glazes and density given by the wine. I also work with sap extract and practically with everything the territory offers us"

She paints on both canvas and paper but admits to preferring the latter, after all paper is a natural product too!

When we ask her to give some tips to potential wine painters, Maurizia helps us discover that some factors influence not only the taste of wine:

"The rule is to try, to experiment. Every wine has its color; but the support, density, fluidity, vintage, aging in barrel, barrique or bottle can all create variations. Try using it straight from the bottle or after letting it evaporate in the sun; the tone will become more intense as it is more concentrated, use it as if it were a watercolor; add drops of natural elements that can create effects such as lemon or vinegar!
Now that will be a test for your creativity!"
 
The wine palette of colors therefore has infinite combinations, made up of countless factors that give rise to ever-different colors, an oasis of possibilities for a creative mind.

Maurizia, just like a true enthusiast, does not turn her nose up at any type of wine and paints with red, rosé, and white; the latter gives her works golden hues – that is what the Soave, the Pignoletto, and the Ortugo have been used for.

The subjects of her works are often linked to the world of nature and wine: flowers, leaves, clusters of grapes, country landscapes, but also women.

I was thinking – would you paint your house with wine? What better nest for a wine lover! It could be done, perhaps by skillfully mixing it with other completely natural elements? 

"There is currently a vast selection of natural tempera paints on the market.
If you wish, you could try making your own organic tempera with natural pigments added to clays, lime and/or milk.
However, these mixtures must be used up very quickly... so if you feel like trying, why not?"

Many people, like me, will have wondered whether any famous artist of the past ever tried this technique; there is no certain evidence, but in the Piacenza area, as the artist herself confirms, penniless painters used to paint with wine on sheets of paper to pay for their food and drink at the osterie.

Many wine drinkers will perhaps have wrinkled their nose thinking about how much wine could end up wetting paper instead of our eager palate. A waste, perhaps?
"It's a bit like asking a rally driver if it's a waste to burn fuel to race!! NO. If an element that is already in itself a work of art helps bring another work of art to life, there can be no waste. From the Art of making wine to the Art of painting with Wine!"