Sentieri #11 – a new art project by Podere Sapaio

Article by Oinos Vivere DiVino article – December 2023

Massimo Piccin, owner of Podere Sapaio, the prestigious winery located in Bolgheri, has acquired a reputation as a winemaker with an eclectic and curious soul, one who has always loved to go beyond the world of wine with his collaborations, venturing into different artistic areas, while often following little-travelled paths. He has primarily done so regarding the writer and poet Laura Pugno, a muse who has long been the inspiration for various projects undertaken by Podere Sapaio, such as the 2023 editorial project “Affondi. Emersioni in profondità”, a collaboration with the photographer Alan Chies. This time the Venetian engineer, an aficionado of both wine and Tuscany, chose to celebrate his company’s twentieth harvest by opening its doors to performance art, with a very special project or, as he likes to call it, a new “utopian” project. This is how Sentieri #11 was born, a site-specific play created ad-hoc by the Azul theatre company and set in Paradiso dei Conigli, the vineyard where Piccin produces ansonica on the Isola del Giglio.

But let’s start from the beginning. “Sentieri” is an independent project – that was conceived by Serena Gatti and Raffaele Natale of the company Azul – in which performance art enters abandoned, shut-down and forgotten places, making them the backdrop to its research. In “Sentieri”, space becomes the inspiration for the artistic process and the protagonist of the work. The project aims to enhance the identity of the place, the heritage that can exist there and only there, in contrast to widespread homologation.
This is what happened on the Isola del Giglio, in the vineyard of Massimo Piccin, where Sentieri’s latest edition – Sentieri#11 – was conceived and staged for the first time in October 2023.
“It was the writer Laura Pugno who introduced us to Massimo Piccin” says Azul’s Serena Gatti: “There was an immediate, intense understanding. In the same way that he had rediscovered the vineyard, bringing it back to life, we too rediscovered places through performative art. One rarely comes across an outlook, openness and attention to detail such as in this case. Sentieri #11 resulted from an on-site residence of about ten days involving three other performers apart from me: Raffaele Natale, Stefano Pozzuoli and Concetta Cariello. We composed an ad hoc dramaturgy and the book “Affondi. Emersioni in profondità” was our guide. “

Precisely because of the uniqueness of its design, precisely because of the symbiosis between work and space, that cannot and refuses to be adapted to another place, the idea came up of transforming a theatrical performance into a work of video-art that would be accessible to a wider audience.

“Those who know a little about Giglio know how difficult it is to not only hold events in certain places on the island, but also to carry out simple everyday activities. My vineyard “Le Secche”, which overlooks the sea,” continues Massimo Piccin, “is for me a unique, almost spiritual place, but it is certainly not easy to reach. You can only get there by taking a long path, by fully immersing yourself in the Mediterranean scrub. Even everyday activities like tending to the vineyard are not easy, let alone creating theatrical performances, and above all repeating them and making them available to a wider audience. It therefore remained to be considered whether to look at Sentieri #11 as a one-off project, an end in itself, and to thus close the experience, or whether to make it known in another way. Having been struck by Sentieri #11’s lighting from the start, I opted for the latter. I wanted everyone to be able to experience the emotions of that story, I wanted the vineyard of the Paradiso dei Conigli to become part of something that goes beyond the world of wine.”

Sentieri #11 thus becomes video-art. Twenty-two minutes of progressive “emergence” resulting in a dramaturgy which does not proceed through a narrative space, but rather one that is evocative, where the question is to try to uncover and translate the suggestions that arise from one’s relationship with the landscape, from living in it, from listening to it.

For the “first” screening of Sentieri #11, the evocative setting of Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi – with whom Podere Sapaio has been a partner for many years -, was chosen once again. 22 November saw the staging of “Atlantide”, an event that was reserved for a close circle of guests, and which was once again inspired by the poem that the writer Laura Pugno presented to Podere Sapaio after personally visiting the Giglio vineyard.

It was an evening filled with evocations in which art, wine and cuisine interacted in a harmonious and immersive way. Welcomed into the Renaissance courtyard by the installation “Shy Society” by the Dutch duo DRIFT, guests were immediately catapulted onto a stage where art and nature merged. After attending the performance Sentieri #11, they were able to taste Podere Sapaio’s Bolgherese reds Sapaio 2020 and Volpolo 2022, as well as Le Secche 2022, the Isola del Giglio ansonica, accompanied by the exclusive dishes of the exceptional Michelin-star chef Vito Mollica, of Ristorante Atto di Palazzo Portinari. The Lucanian chef created an ad hoc tasting menu dedicated to the wines of Podere Sapaio. In particular, when pairing Le Secche, he created two dishes of great harmony and strong contrasts: Etruscan baccala soup and an artichoke, pumpkin and porcini mushroom risotto. The perfect combination to affirm the freshness and acidity of the Giglese ansonica.

The event was attended by a range of guests, from the world of wine and gastronomy, to that of cinema and music: oenologist Carlo Ferrini, chefs Ariel Hagen and Rocco De Santis, the American actress Debi Mazar, and singer-songwriter Enrico Nigiotti, to name just a few. Speeches were made by the writer Laura Pugno and the protagonists of the video, as well as by the curator of Palazzo Strozzi, Arturo Galansino, and “wine philosopher” and author of the blog “Natura delle Cose”, Gaetano Saccoccio.

It was therefore not just an evening of art, wine and cuisine, but much more. Through his style and visionary being, with the Atlantide event, Piccin gave the public a true “utopian” experience, a metaphor for a new vision of the relationship between man and nature, made of connections, looks, fusions and mutual respect.

Event partners: Andrea Felici Winery, Le Marchesine, Lyra Wine

Le Secche 2022- Ansonica del Paradiso dei Conigli (Podere Sapaio)

“An unmistakable variety, the 2022 Secche vintage has aromas of dried apricot and yellow peach, fragrant spices, and lavender. Overall, it is a wine with an impressive nose in terms of aroma, with hints of heather, strawberry tree, and cyclamen. Dry on the palate, it is rigid, like a rock wine, but with a good progression and the right rhythm. Mineral and savory […] 700 bottles of “utopian” wine, naturally and manually cultivated, as well as naturally produced. Maturation takes place in Clayver ceramic barrels for about a year, with 12 months of aging in the bottle.”

Divina Vitale – writer for Gambero Rosso