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| Malacoda – wine and labels by Mario Madiai (image borrowed from www.groane.it) |
Having touched on the theme of art and wine in my last post, here I am again with a similar combination, though with an entirely different slant.
Siena-born artist Mario Madiai has enjoyed worldwide success with his paintings since the 1970s and is one of the best known and critically acclaimed names in Italian contemporary art. Perhaps most famous for his series of works entitled roses, it is his landscapes that I find most appealing, the richness of the tints faithfully reflecting the warmth of the Tuscan countryside.
In recent years Madiai has settled in the heart of this countryside, in the Province of Pisa, turning his creative talents to another art – that of winemaking. His pure Merlot, Malacoda, has achieved considerable success and each bottle has the added bonus of bearing a label painted by Madiai himself. Each one is a unique work. The name Malacoda is a demon character from Dante’s Inferno and means “evil tail”. Madiai’s wine labels, in fact, bear the images of lizards with ‘evil tails’ and for each vintage the creature holds a different object in its mouth, an ear of wheat in 2006, and a bunch of grapes in 2007.
Tuscan contemporaries 