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The relationship between art and wine goes deeper and further back in time than the glass of wine that lubricates conversation at art exhibition openings.
More than 2,000 years ago, in ancient Greece and Rome, artists were depicting people and gods creating and sharing wine on pottery, ceramics and in paintings.
Poets, writers and philosophers praised the virtues and pleasures of wine, symbolising conviviality, cultural refinement, and appreciation of beauty and creativity.
The growing, harvesting and making of wine has also been seen since ancient times to symbolise nature’s bounty and agricultural wealth, the cycles of seasons and life from growth to harvest, forming part of religious sacraments of blessing.
Wine and the arts — visual, musical, written and performed — have similarities in being human-made, intersections of science and creativity; stimulating the senses, imagination and memory; they are born of passion and vision, and they want to be shared.
A literal demonstration of the marriage of fine art and wine comes in the labels of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, the Bordeaux cellar that produces what is considered one of the world’s greatest wines.
Since 1945, each vintage has borne a label commissioned from a leading artist of the day, and the list is quite astonishing — Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky, Andy Warhol, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, and even SA’s William Kentridge in 2016, the first artist from Africa commissioned to create an artwork for the legendary label.
Which brings us to the relationship between art and wine at La Motte in Franschhoek, a wine estate that houses a substantial collection of the works of JH Pierneef, a master of South African landscape painting, renowned for his distinctive style and great influence on contemporary art.
There is much in sync between La Motte and Pierneef — his love of South African landscapes, nature and architecture, and the passion of La Motte’s owner Hanneli Rupert-Koegelenberg and her family for art, SA’s culture, nature, and the preservation of its architecture.
The estate launched its flagship Pierneef Collection wines in 2002, honouring the artist with reproductions of his linocuts of rural landscapes and buildings on the labels.
The new vintages of the two Pierneef Collection wines have just been released, with a refresh of the labels highlighting Pierneef’s signature and changing up the selection of his black-and-white linocuts.
The red remains a blend of Syrah (93%) and Viognier, but renamed La Motte Pierneef Atelier, and the new 2020 vintage (Platter’s 4.5*, R335) is an elegant, complex delight that ironically benefited from the Covid pandemic-induced shutdowns of its harvest year that had knock-on impacts in bottling delays further down the line and the wine spending 24 months in oak instead of the usual 18.
The result, says La Motte cellarmaster Edmund Terblanche, is that “the perfumy rose petal and eastern spice are now more integrated with the oak and created lots of depth on the nose”.
Delightful to smell and sip as ethereal floral aromas move into a petal-soft, voluptuous medium-bodied palate, juicy ripe black and red berries threaded through with warm spice, salami savouriness and minerality that lingers on and on.
Don’t be fooled though, those florals and softness are tempered by a clean, firm backbone of fine tannins that suggest this one will reward some patient cellaring, though it’s perfect for enjoying now too.
It’s a wine that whispers rather than roars, but sometimes a whisper is more powerful.
Like the syrah grapes for the Atelier, grapes for La Motte Pierneef Sauvignon Blanc 2024 (R180), also a Platter 4.5*, came from some of SA’s most southerly, cool maritime-influenced vineyards in Elim.
The wine has an instant ‘wow factor’ in its distinct minerality, a burst of green fig and citrus, and the lightest touch of creaminess from a dash of sémillon (12%) that rounds it out with subtle waxiness and lends grippy texture, as well as ageing potential for a year or three.
Green fig on the nose, with citrus and passion fruit notes; crisp and textured on the palate with gooseberry and green pepper, and that minerality that lingers tinglingly on the finish, this is an elegant pre-dinner glass, great paired with seafood or a crunchy salad, and the minerality will stand up to Chinese or Thai dishes with a touch of spice.
These wines call for art on the plate to complement art in the glass.
The Herald
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