Italian culture has a lot to do with wine. And if centuries of history told by wines and vineyards is not enough to confirm this, works of art, such as the Bacchus by Caravaggio and Guido Reni, which will be on display at Vinitaly, also remind us of this.

But art also has another task and that is to succeed in translating what is not tangible into something tangible, starting with emotions. And this is what the Arnaldo Caprai Winery wanted to do by commissioning Giulia Bernardelli, in art Bernulia, to translate into art the magic of wine understood not only as a product, but also as landscape, nature, perfumes, colours, shades of the seasons, history, traditions, people.

And Bernulia has broken down the elements of this magic, trying to make them more intelligible. A new language that manages to go beyond the traditional pictorial representations of goblets, wine bottles, bacchanals and Bacchus, to recount all the fascination of both a territory and a sip of wine through an artistic composition that plays with the elements of nature, colours, materiality, scents.

The experience lasted more than a year and took shape in four "ephemeral" works of art, the stylistic hallmark of Bernulia, who before realising this important project signed works for Pirelli, Washington Post, New York Film Festival, Disney, Armani, Segafredo, Pixar, Autogrill, Fashion Chamber and others.
His art always stems from natural or food elements, and all his works - as we said - are ephemeral, disappearing after completion. "These characteristics seemed perfect to us to try to represent our Sagrantino and its multifaceted personality in a visual and artistic way: wine is also nature, it is food and it is, to all intents and purposes, ephemeral, because its purpose is to be consumed. Last but not least, wine is also art, and our winery has always been linked to this world, first and foremost with the Caprai4Love project,' explains Marco Caprai.

It is from all this that the 'Impronta del Sagrantino' project was born, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG (obtained in 1992). Hence, Bernulia's work also sought to visually represent the olfactory, gustatory and tactile sensations and emotions that a wine can give. With her, the company to whom we owe the rebirth of Sagrantino and the Montefalco area wanted to translate into a visual imprint, a veritable identity card, the experience one has when tasting each Caprai signature Sagrantino. But that's not all: the works created by Bernulia also aimed to give shape to the imagery linked to people, territory and nature, the nuances of the seasons, perfumes, traditions and history. A representation of that intrinsic Franciscan sustainability of the Montefalco territory that St. Francis of Assisi recounted as follows: "Nihil iucundius vidit mea valle spoletana".

The images created by Bernulia for the Arnaldo Caprai Sagrantino wines aim to express the different personalities of each label, while also seeking to represent the fundamental organoleptic expressions of the different terroirs of the DOCG as well as all the charm of the landscape in which they are set, and the people who animate it.

"For the Arnaldo Caprai, I wanted to represent and express my personal vision of Sagrantino, its history and the history of the territory; Caprai, Sagrantino and Montefalco are now three names that are inextricably linked, and wine is a particularly complex element; I therefore tried to convey this complexity through very different compositions. It has been a journey that has transformed over time, and from a more material type of composition, I felt the need to move towards abstraction in order to fully express the sense and imprint of Sagrantino,' says the artist.

The works created by Bernulia for Arnaldo Caprai will be presented at Vinitaly, in the presence of the artist, on Sunday 2 April at 11.30 a.m. at the winery's stand PAD 7 STAND B6.

This will be followed by a tasting of the new Sagrantino vintages covered by the artistic creations, guided by sommelier Daniela Scrobogna, a well-known face on TV programmes such as La prova del cuoco, Uno Mattina and Eat Parade.