Guado al Melo is a winery built entirely underground, at the foot of the hills between Bolgheri and Castagneto Carducci. The roof is a garden of olive trees, fruit trees, and flowers. Over the years, the patronage of the owners, Michele Scienza and Annalisa Motta, has allowed me to develop various projects designed to interact closely with the winery’s functions and spaces.
Regenesi Ludica
Walking on the roof garden, very few signs reveal the cellar spaces below; among them are the ventilation domes, now worn by time. In 2014, Annalisa and Michele, I was asked to contribute. With Regenesi Ludica , I wanted to revitalize these elements, transforming them from something people try to hide into something that characterizes the landscape while engaging in a dialogue with it. Painted with enamel, I chose playful colors and graphic motifs inspired by plant elements. Each dome is designed to blend with the surrounding vegetation, and each one is unique, so that visitors can even have fun trying to find them all within the garden.
Leaf
That same year, in the first tasting room, Leaf, I created a triptych painted in oil on wood that depicts, on an enlarged scale, three sections of a single vine leaf.
Each panel measures 125x250 cm, and the three colors—green, yellow, and red—represent the vegetative stages of the vine.
August Dance
The second tasting room project dates from 2017. In consultation with the owners, I sought to create a harmonious yet surprising environment; an oak table with Corten steel legs, a concrete sink matching the floor, and collections of ampelographic prints on the walls—all dominated by Danza d'agosto, a large composition of 15 oil-painted panels on OSB wood that transforms the magnified forms of a bunch of grapes into abstraction.
“August Dance” is inspired by the moment of veraison, when the grapes, as they begin to ripen, take on a multitude of colors. This was the starting point for working on chromatic harmonies and accentuating them. I sought to offer various levels of interpretation: the composition as a whole, the balance between its parts, and, within each individual panel, the brushstrokes and the irregular grain of the wood.
