Wineries aren’t just vast stretches of land with a tasting room. They’re coming up with new ways to attract guests, including contemporary art fans.
Château La Grâce Dieu des Prieurs, Saint-Emilion, France
This French estate combines two passions of Russian businessman and collector Andrey Filatov, who in 2012 created the Art Russe Foundation based on his collection of Russian and Soviet paintings, and a year later bought the local winery, whose land is famous for its terroirs, which are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. He invited the legendary architect Jean Nouvel to reconstruct the place with buildings of the 19th century, and began to promote Russian art from his collection on the labels of the Grand Cru produced here, in tasting rooms and guest houses. Here you can find works by Nikolay Feshin and Geli Korzhev, Arkady Plastov, and Alexander Gerasimov.
La Commanderie de Peyrassol, Le Luc, France
Wine collector Philippe Austruy’s winery is a peer of the 21st century. Having bought fertile 850 hectares in Provence, where grapes were already growing, an enterprising Frenchman on the ruins of the Templar castles decided not only to build a guesthouse for all comers but also to lay out an ambitious art park, designed by landscape designer Gaële Bazennerye. About a hundred works by renowned artists such as Ugo Rondinone, Lee Ufan, Joana Vasconcelos, Antoni Tapies, and Wim Delvoye have settled on the grounds. And by order of the owner of the site specific, installations here were made by French classicists Bertrand Lavier, Daniel Buren, and Jean-Pierre Raynaud.
Donum, Sonoma, U.S.A.
Donum Estate was established in 2001 on two hundred acres of idyllic rolling hills in Carneros. Ten years later, it was acquired by Austrian collector Allan Warburg who decided to utilize the vast expanse to its full potential, combining both his passions — wine and art. In 2018, he opened an art park, exhibiting his — one of the world’s largest — collection of contemporary sculpture. Louise Bourgeois, Fernando Botero, Antony Gormley, Keith Haring are just a few of the first-rate stars whose work visitors can encounter here.
Chateau La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France
The concept “nature — wine — art” was invented, of course, in France. Among the many farms here, La Coste Manor stands out, investing tirelessly in the local infrastructure. They were one of the first to invite a legendary architect to build the new winery — Jean Nouvel was that architect. Others followed: Tadao Ando built an art center and art park, while Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano built pavilions for exhibitions and wine storage. The park and fields are decorated with sculptures by Alexander Calder, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ai Weiwei, and many other artists.
Golubitskoe Estate, Temryuk, Russia
The winery on the Taman Peninsula is the youngest on the list: seedlings from Italy and Austria were brought to this picturesque place near the Sea of Azov only in 2009. Its founder, businessman and collector Alexander Mechetin, organized the development here in a modern eclectic spirit, and he decided to invite artists to find new meanings. In 2020, art residences and exhibition space opened in Golubitskoe Estate. One of the first residents was the artist Alice Yoffe, and after her, many Russian artists and curators have worked here.
Photo: press-office
