Artist label wine

1976: PIETRO CASCELLA for the BAROLO BRIACCA ROCCHE 1970

We met the Maestro at his home inland from Viareggio, where he lived with his family. Cascella immediately accepted our proposal, which he found full of a “flavour of days gone by". It convinced him sufficiently to lead him to write a letter of presentation to Sebastian Matta in April 1976, calling upon him to "...forget water and drink wine. The wine of my friend Vietti..."

This was to be the beginning of a firm friendship, now shared as well with his son Jacopo, who is also an artist and will - we believe - end up painting one of our labels himself.

Cascella originally wanted to create a large silkscreen which would enfold the whole bottle, due to his reluctance to adapt his work to small dimensions. He expressed himself magnificently, however, with an original 1975 hand-printed silkscreen in four colours showing a glowing design with stylized fauns and totems.

Recently Cascella has declared his intention of preparing a new label, a demonstration of friendship and deep affection which has given us great pleasure. This would be the first instance of an artist repeating - twenty years on - his experience of interpreting wine through painting and artwork, measuring himself with other themes and techniques.

The label was dedicated to 3,497 bottles of 1970 Barolo Briacca Rocche, made from grapes grown on the vineyard in Località Briacca in the village of Castiglione Falletto. The presentation took place in Turin in January 1976, during a very enjoyable evening attended, amongst others, by Ugo Zatterin, Luigi Veronelli and Ave Ninchi, who at the time was presenting a successful cookery programme on the Italian TV channel RAI.