Last week's Mondavi case inspired me to dive deeper into the pairing of art and wine. Mondavi brought visual artists into the winery to display their art and hosted festivals with performances from esteemed musicians. Before I began researching this topic, the connection between wine and visual art seemed more immediately evident to me. Art and wine can be compared in terms of:
1) Heaviness: This involves studying the weight of the lines and heaviness of the themes in the artwork, and can be compared with how full-bodied and viscous the wine is.
2) Color: Color strongly affects human emotion. In both art and wine, color can be rich and deep, or light and lively.
3) Aroma and Brightness: A wine's aroma can be classified as primary (fruity and from the grape), secondary (from the vessel used for aging), or tertiary (from the age of the bottle). Similarly, a painting's brightness/colors can be primary (yellow, blue, red), secondary (green, purple orange), or tertiary (black, brown, white).
4) Taste and Complexity: The taste of wine can range from simple to complex (for example, wines aged in oak barrels are more complex). A painting can also exist on a spectrum of complexity.
5) Texture and Media Type: How the texture of wine feels in the mouth, and the level of texture and types of media used in the artwork.
6) Finish: The wine drinker, like the art viewer, can experience a different lasting impression of the tasting/viewing.
Many, if not all of these factors strongly affect human emotion, which is why wine making is viewed as an art as much as it is a science, and why wine and visual art are so often paired together. I wanted to look more into the performing arts, because with the way a traditional theatre or dance show operates, a performing arts show and rich wine tasting experience don't seem compatible. I've been dancing ballet my entire life, and for nearly all the performances I've danced in or seen, the cadence is quite similar: There is mingling and food and beverage consumption before the start of the first act, a far too short intermission with barely enough time to use the restroom and perhaps purchase more libations, and a mad rush to leave after the show. With such a format, it would be nearly impossible to bring wine tasting and ballet together, though ballet, like visual art, incorporates elements of heaviness, color, brightness, complexity, and finish (texture may be pushing it, though one could perhaps make a metaphorical argument for it). One ballet company, the Fine Arts Ballet Theater in southern California, designed a program around a wine tasting experience, theming each piece (a mixture of classical and contemporary pieces) around different types of wine, and extending the intermission for partner Europa Winery to host a tasting. Concepts like wine-themed dance pieces with longer or more frequent intermissions and more varied styles of dance could blend the wine tasting and ballet viewing experiences beautifully. It's also possible to experiment with venue, and for ballet companies to stage smaller-scale productions in cozier settings with wine tastings ongoing during the show (a similar idea to a dinner theater). Considering the relatively low viewership of ballet and consumption of premium wine among the millennial population, pairing wine and performing art in a creative way could be a solution.
Wine tasting can be a wonderful lens through which one can experience both visual and performing arts, and I'd love to see how artists, producers, artistic directors, etc. discover unique ways to pair the two in the future.
https://www.mauricescru.com/2011/12/wine-and-art-pairing/
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-californian-ballet-program-combines-wine-with-2012jul19-story.html
https://qz.com/quartzy/1388101/a-decade-after-the-financial-crisis-us-arts-attendance-is-back/
Thank you Maithreyi for the post! In reading through it, I was inspired to apply the same framework to the perfume industry.
ReplyDelete1) Heaviness: N/A
2) Color: Color of the perfume is also a huge appeal factor. With yellows usually representing more mature or heavier, muskier scents, with greens or lighter pastels more floral or citrusy.
3) Aroma and Brightness: Aroma is everything and the multiple layers - what hits the nose first is a usual brighter scent, with thicker heavier undernotes and a finish scent.
4) Taste and Complexity: N/A as perfume is not a consumable product
5) Texture and Media Type: I'll replace this one with form factor - the bottling and packaging of the perfume. How it's applied through roller, solid or spray form.
6) Finish: How the perfume lasts on the skin throughout the day, merges with natural body oils and scents of the individual wearer to create a very unique "palate"