Wine and art, a long love story

Artists of all ages have been seduced by the relationship between wine and art, an ancient marriage that has fascinated humanity for thousands of years

Some pairings are as old as civilization itself. In Ancient Greece, wine and art were already intertwined. The great popular celebrations were based on an unbeatable triad: music-dance-wine. And the Odyssey, one of the greatest literary works in history, gave an enormous protagonism to wine, reflecting the importance that this elaboration worthy of the gods had for Greek society.

Over the centuries, wine and art have consolidated their love story. The fine arts bear witness to this. Some of the most fascinating painters have introduced wine in their works. Music, from traditional songs to pop and rock of the 21st century, through classical composers, has celebrated these elaborations. In the cinema, we have seen the importance of wine as an elaboration that brings people together and has the complexity of the best works of art.

In addition, there are spaces where wine and art flow through every corner to reach a beautiful level of symbiosis. In places like Pazo Baión, architecture, sculpture and wine are inseparable and their coexistence makes the enjoyment of all of them more pleasant.

Today, we propose a walk through the shared history between wine and art, a journey through time to highlight a romance that never ceases to captivate us.

Wine and painting

The classical gods loved wine. This elaboration had its gods in Greek and Roman mythology: Dionysus and Bacchus. Wine has also been very relevant since the dawn of Christianity. And, even today, it is still part of the Christian liturgy. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the relationship between wine and art is very intense in terms of painting. Greco-Latin mythology and Christianity have inspired some of history’s most beautiful, evocative, ethereal paintings.

If we look at Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, we will find that Jesus and his apostles enjoyed wine before Christ’s arrest. In Caravaggio’s Bacchus, we can even appreciate the waves that the wine makes after being served. Bacchus is also the protagonist of another painting that still fascinates us today: The Triumph of Bacchus by Diego Velázquez. It is a work that vindicates the most playful facet of wine and its capacity to make us happy and inspire us.

If a Spanish painter is on par with Velázquez, it is undoubtedly Francisco de Goya. The master dedicated several paintings to wine, thus consolidating the historical relationship between wine and art. Let us think, for example, of The Drinker or The Grape Harvest. We could continue tracing the romance between wine and art through painting in works as impressive as Tiziano’s The Bacchanal of the Andrians, a major celebration, or the much more leisurely social gathering of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s The Rowers’ Luncheon.

In addition, of course, we cannot forget the wine-growing landscapes. In this sense, Vincent Van Gogh’s The Red Vineyard near Arles is simply unbeatable for its incredible colors.

Wine and architecture

The relationship between wine and architecture has given us some fascinating buildings: wine cellars. A winery is not just any building. Why? Such complex elaborations as wines require very specific light and temperature conditions for their elaboration and aging to develop successfully.

For this reason, architects have been racking their brains for centuries to design the best wineries. The result is an impressive architectural legacy. In Spain, France or Italy, it is possible to discover wineries that are true works of art.

In addition, with the technological revolution we have experienced and with the boom in viticultural research, wineries have been modernized. Thus, breathtaking heritage spaces coexist today with the most cutting-edge technological devices.

Discovering the architecture of wine allows us to understand how winemaking has evolved and, at the same time, to learn about the architectural styles of each moment and some of the most innovative solutions devised by architects from different periods.

Wine and music

Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring. That goes into the summer wine popularized by Nancy Sinatra in the late 1960s. The aromas of strawberries and cherries can be found in many wines; the angel’s kiss is perhaps more complicated. Summer Wine is but a small demonstration that musicians have always retained sight of wine and its evocative capacity.

As we pointed out at the beginning of this article on wine and art, the fruit of the grapes has historically coexisted with music in all human celebrations. The great wine festival, the grape harvest, has never lacked music. So much so that the beginning of Antonio Vivaldi’s Autumn of the Four Seasons celebrates the grape harvest. After all, harvesting the grapes marked the start of the new season and has always been of unusual importance in wine-growing regions.

When we think of wine pairing, we undoubtedly focus on gastronomy. But the spiritual pairing of wine and music is just as exquisite and exciting. One need only have heard the Brindisi from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata to know that the music enhances the liveliest toast, glass in hand. As the chorus of this iconic opera says: «Let us enjoy! Wine and song and laughter beautify the night.»

Wine and dance

Today, grapes are mostly pressed with machines designed specifically for this important process during the grape harvest. Not so long ago, however, the grapes were trodden by people. This labor, which could be exhausting, led to a beautiful relationship between wine and art, or rather, between grape harvesting and folklore. Thus, in many parts of the world, traditional dances were used to make the grape harvest more fun.

Even today, it is still possible to find grape harvest festivals in which popular dances are performed that hybridize the traditional folklore of the area with the act of treading the grapes.

The fusion between wine and dance reminds us that if wine is so important for the fine arts, it is largely because it has always enjoyed social relevance, and the art of any era invites us to reflect on the society of the moment.

Wine and sculpture

If Dionysus and Bacchus are important in painting, let alone in sculpture. We are fortunate that Greco-Latin sculptures representing these gods have survived wars, the weather and the passage of time. We must add the recreations made by great master sculptors such as Michelangelo, who molded his own Bacchus with a cup in hand and wonderful clusters around his head.

Hence it should not surprise us that there are wine tourism spaces such as Pazo Baión in which sculptures coexist with the vineyards, integrating themselves wonderfully into their landscapes and the microcosm they form.

Even more so, if we consider that when talking about wine and art, we cannot forget that sculpture has served throughout the centuries to vindicate the importance of nature, its wild beauty and its impact on our lives.

Wine and Literature

How many literary characters are wine lovers? We don’t have enough space to list them.

The relationship between wine and art is marked by fire in some of the most iconic characters of Spanish literature. From Lazarillo de Tormes, who used his master’s blindness to drink his wine, to the detective Pepe Carvalho, always ready to pair the best dishes with elaborations that would enhance them, to La Celestina, who knew perfectly all the virtues of wine, or Sancho Panza, who vindicated the social and emotional character of these elaborations by declaring «that to a toast from a friend, what heart should be so marble that reason does not make it?».

Not a few poets have surrendered to the exhalation of wine and have written powerful verses about it. There we have, for example, Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Wine or a poem by Francisco de Quevedo in which he describes the wine as «grandson of the vine, blessed liquor.»

In addition, the binomial wine and art have given us some literary works full of magic such as The Tasting by Roald Dahl. It is an addictive story about the competition between two men to guess what wine they are tasting without being able to look at the bottle. This story shows us that the marriage between wine and art helps us better understand how we are and get into the depths of our souls.

Wine and cinema

It is impossible to list all the films in which a character enjoys a glass of wine. The cinema perfectly reflects the relevance of this elaboration in our society since the existence of pictorial or written testimonies. Numerous films have captured the connection between wine and art through celluloid. Thanks to this, we have works such as Sideways, which tell the story of a journey through vineyards and wineries in California in which the wines are as important as the people who enjoy them—a path of self-discovery and reflection through elaborations that invite us to think and create.

Another aspect to highlight about the relationship between wine and cinema is that this art has reflected, like no other, the result obtained by pairing superb wines with gastronomic delights. Films such as Babette’s Feast or La passion de Dodin Bouffant invite us to eat with our eyes and teach us the importance of wines when enjoying the most succulent menus. We must never forget that gastronomy and viticulture have enriched and complemented each other for millennia.

Wine in other arts… just as beautiful

If cinema is the seventh art, what about the others? Along with the fine arts discussed throughout this article, other later arts have not acquired this category but are fundamental for understanding our society.

For example, the comic is halfway between literature and painting. And that has given us works as subtle and stimulating as Étienne Davodeau’s Les Ignorants, a comic that deals precisely with the relationship between wine and art through a comic writer who knows nothing about wine and a winegrower who has no idea about comics. Throughout the vine’s life cycle, both men learn from each other and discover the communicating vessels between artist and craftsman, between wine and art.

While comics hybridize literature with painting, television series combine cinematographic techniques with the episodic narrative of novels. The Drops of God, a series that grew from a manga, is a great example. In it, a winemaking expert and his master’s daughter must compete for his inheritance: the best collection of wine bottles in the world. What does the battle consist of? Overcoming various tests related to the cultivation of the vine and the production of the most special wines on the planet.

Finally, we must remember the design. When discussing such valuable content as wine, we must also pay attention to its container. Some bottles are true works of sculpture. For example, in the case of Pazo Baión’s Rías Baixas, the shape of the bottles is one more ingredient of the soul of these albariños with five centuries of life. But, in addition to the shape of the bottles, we must also highlight the value of their labels. Talented designers have used all their expertise and artistic knowledge to create attractive and imaginative designs that capture our attention and generate the need to taste the hidden elaborations behind them.

So yes, wine and art are inseparable; look at a bottle of wine for proof.

Pazo Baión is a place where you can experience the affair between wine and art

Are there places where you can appreciate the links between wine and art? Of course, there are. Without going any further, since 2008, Pazo Baión has been a wine tourism space in the Rías Baixas where love for viticulture, an extraordinary architectural heritage and an exquisite sculptural complex coexist. In other words, it is a place where wine and art meet and merge.

When Condes de Albarei took over the property of Pazo Baión, with five centuries of life behind it, it decided to renovate it to turn it into a space that would vindicate the connection between wine and art. The rehabilitation project was entrusted to César Portela, the National Architecture Prize winner and one of Spain’s most important architects of the last half-century. In this way, the aim was to enhance the architectural legacy of the property: manor house, winery, dovecote. At the same time, it was modernized and adapted for everyone’s enjoyment.

Likewise, the gardens and natural spaces of Pazo Baión were enriched with powerful sculptures that vindicate the relationship between wine and art and the goodness of mother nature.

If all this were not enough, Pazo Baión opens its doors wide to welcome all the arts. Every summer, there are music concerts that flood the vineyards with melodies. The best photographers immortalize unique moments such as the “I do” between people who love each other. Graphic design is essential for marketing the three elaborations created in the winery.

Art flows through every corner of this property. Come and check it out and discover the exciting common history between wine and art.