Bidding starts for Ornellaia 2022 wines

Bonhams New York today kicked off a sale of large format wines from the 2022 vintage of Ornellaia’s Vendemmia d’Artista collection, with the auction house taking bids until 24 June. The sale, which takes place from 12-24 June, offers 14 unique lots featuring vivid wine labels designed by Cameroonian artist Pascal Marthine Tayou. Each vintage in Ornellaia's Vandemmie d’Artist series sports a label created by a different artist, and for the 2022s Tayou chose to depict the life cycle of a plant, starting with the seed and its germination before depicting its resilience in adapting to the climate in order to flower and bear fruit. For the double magnums, Tayou photographed a desert plant emerging through cracks in the soil. Each label contributes its own section of a sequence showing the various stages of the plant as it manages to sprout with determination (the name of the 2022 wine is La Determinazione). Meanwhile, the 10 Imperials (containing six litres each) and a single Salmanazar (holding nine litres) are estimated to go for between US$9,000-$17,000 and US$15,000-$25,000 respectively. These bottles feature textile artworks reclaimed from recycled materials to form colourful patchwork cases.

Energy generated

Finally, for the 750ml bottle label, with an estimated sale price of US$5,000-$8,000, concentric circles in different colours represent the energy generated by the union of different elements when they form a single whole. “It moved me to see the way in which Pascal Marthine Tayou had interpreted the vintage character of La Determinazione,” sais Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of the Frescobaldi group, which owns Ornellaia. You can read db's big interview with him here. “His vision remains close to the wine world where the ties between humans and nature form the basis of everything we do.” Proceeds from the sale will go to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to support the upcoming exhibition Collections in Focus: Modern European Currents, which opens in July 2025 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. “We are proud to present Vendemmia d’Artista for the first time at Bonhams — a landmark auction where the worlds of fine wine, contemporary art, and philanthropy converge,” said Amayès Aouli, global head of wine & spirits, Bonhams. “This extraordinary collaboration with Ornellaia not only offers collectors access to one-of-a-kind bottles, but also supports the Guggenheim Museum, enriching culture globally.”

Rethinking Super Tuscans

One of the original 'Super Tuscans', Ornellaia has been thought of as wine royalty since the late 1960s and early 70s. While the term Super Tuscan itself holds no legal meaning, and doesn’t appear on labels, it became perceived as a stamp of quality. However, some people are beginning to question whether the cult of Super Tuscans needs a rethink. "Super Tuscans single-handedly created a category and transformed the way people think about Italian wine and what’s possible there and no one can change that," Marika Vida-Arnold, national fine wine brand ambassador for US distributor Frederick Wildman & Sons, told db. "But the term feels really awkward now. Calling anything Super implies ‘better,’ and as a culture, I think we’re moving past that.” According to Francesco Ricasoli, owner and CEO of Chianti producer Barone Ricasoli: "Super Tuscans were created because producers wanted to make a great wine and couldn’t do it under Chianti Classico regulations. The term ‘Super Tuscan’ no longer feels as relevant, and is somewhat out of fashion... "It still holds some sway as a brand name, but people toss it around without knowing what it means. It’s like saying ‘Ferrari.’” That may be so, but it didn't stop Ornellaia representing three of the top 10 performing Italian wines on Live Trade, the fine wine trading platform owned by Bordeaux Index, last year. Ornellaia joined La Place de Bordeaux in 2015 and last year was one of around 70 Italian wines represented in the French network's 2024 spring campaign. "We wanted to go one step beyond and have our wine reach those markets and customers where we didn’t have much presence,” Vianney Gravereaux, Ornellaia's commercial director, told db. "La Place is a fantastic distribution machine that has its fingers on the pulse of all markets, with an amazing ability to adapt and to provide feedback to the producers." To find out more about what's behind the Italian love affair with La Place de Bordeaux read our article here.