Bordeaux’s Château Siran has revealed its new artist label for the 2020 vintage, created by French-Chilean painter and sculptor Federica Matta. It marks a return to the estate’s artist labels, a tradition that started in 1980 but was discontinued after 2004.
“Each illustrated label reflects an important event of the year. 2020 was marked by COVID and the several confinements which we all lived,” Château Siran owner Édouard Miailhe told Wine Spectator. “This period allowed us to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life and, in particular, to be closer to nature.”
Matta, who was born in France and is also an accomplished jeweler and muralist, is known for her signature swirling, languid style, taking natural forms and imagery and bringing them into a new reality with bright colors accentuated by bold borders. According to a statement from the winery, Miailhe and his wife, Sevrine, asked Matta to create a visual “antidote to COVID” in response to the pandemic. Matta employed a pastel palette inspired by the Margaux estate and vineyards, along with her signature linework, to produce “a joyful and Dionysian allegory of wine.”
Miaihle took over Château Siran in 2007 from his parents, and has shepherded the estate into the 21st century, but the art connection runs much deeper than the estate’s artist labels: Château Siran was owned by the family of French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec until 1859, when the estate was purchased by Miaihle’s ancestors.
Going forward, Siran will once again feature a new artist label with each new vintage, and the series will continue to reference an important historical event of the time, as the series did from 1980 to 2004. For example, the 1982 label created by the late Joan Miró honored that year’s World Cup, the late German painter A. R. Penck honored the fall of the Berlin Wall for the 1989 Siran label … and who can forget the 1997 label homage to the bicentennial of the death of Irish-British statesman Edmund Burke, by the very, very late English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds?
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