Artist Elisabetta Rogai’s Eno-art is mesmerising, says Subhash Arora, president of the Indian Wine Academy, who met the artist in Italy and talked about the new wine art
 Unobserved by many visitors, at the Anteprima wine tasting organised by the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, wine producers in Western Europe, were a series of paintings by a Florentine artist, Elisabetta Rogai, who was commissioned by the Consorzio to produce works of art using wine.
Wine and art have been linked together in more ways than one. Wine has been the subject of many artists who are often commissioned to paint for labels that are reproduced on the bottle. Mouton Rothschild has been a pioneer in Bordeaux while Grover, Sula, Opera, Chateau d’Ori are a few such examples of emulating this trend in India. There is a French artist Jean- Pierre Got who has become famous for making special posters for wine events and wineries across the globe.
Wine in a frame
The use of wine to create art is uncommon. I saw a delectable example during my visit to Montepulciano in Tuscany recently. One corner of the big Tasting Room created in the newly renovated Fortezza (most Italian cities, towns and villages have one such fortress, ostensibly created by the long- gone nobility and royalty centuries ago to help protect their territory, and now a historical and touristic delight) was decorated by a series of eye catching paintings, all of them portraits of beautiful women.
The paintings were in wine colours with a dash of grey and other lighter shades making them very pleasant. All the paintings were created by the well known Tuscan pittrice (female painter) Elisabetta Rogai from Florence. She had been commissioned by the Consorzio, known for their ingenuity in adding something unique every year to the professional tasting (last year saw cosmetics made exclusively from the red grape must of Montepulciano after the fermentation).
“It took a long period of research and experimental work, involving the University of Florence before I could develop the wine-made paintings (also known as Eno Art),” said Elisabetta. Most comfortable with oil and canvas and blue denim, she had used only a bit of charcoal for the main lines of this style of paintings. She uses only white and red wine with no additives or chemical components. “Such combination allows the wine to reproduce on the canvas exactly the same process of ageing that normally takes place inside the bottle,” she explained.
Many other painters have tried to use wine in their works, but never really succeeded because of several technical difficulties, including the challenge of removing alcohol by Reverse Osmosis. Wine density, alcohol volatility, the limitation of the chromatic scale, the possibility of working only on small canvas etc are a few of the limiting factors of Eno Art.
A curator of one of Rogai’s several shows in Italy and Japan, sums up her work: ‘“lisabetta’s paintings will not leave you indifferent, her colours and forms will penetrate your soul. Her portraits, mostly of beautiful women tell their story, which goes beyond stereotypes. The first glance could mesmerize anyone who loves his glass of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano or Rosso di Montepulciano.”
This is not the first time Rogai has worked with wine as the protagonist. Another event abroad that made her famous was the label she created for the Chianti Classico Astrid, the official wine chosen for the semester of the Italian presidency for the European Union Council.
Creation of eno art
Elisabetta delivers a bottle of red wine to the university and gets back the residue after due processing. “It is more like gooey paste,” she says. She also uses boiled wine for a part of the paintings. The result is impressive, the new painting changes its texture three months later and the difference is visible. The colours evolve on the canvas from typically young purples and cherry reds to more mature tones of orange, amber or brown. “The wine aging, which normally occurs over the years, takes only a few months on the canvas,’ she says with a smile.
The ‘wine-made’ paintings costs 5,000 Euros ($6,800) upwards for a 100x8 cms sized paintings, which are available at her studio in Florence. She would welcome visitors from India, she said, however, prior appointment must be made since her work is generally exhibited in some part of the world or the other.
After Montepulciano the works move to other parts of Italy before ending up in Vinitaly from April 7-11, where they may be viewed at the Balzini stand.
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