Be carried away by emotions when you are tasting a wine opens unexpected scenarios and often leads to unexpected combinations. Especially when you taste not just one, but several excellent Falanghina like those of the Cantine Astroni. An entire vertical of wines that inspired this article, with the wine of the Neapolitan cellar that goes to marry with a work of modern art, a masterpiece of Futurism.
The monster of the Twenty cents
Twenty euro cents in your pocket. Everybody has that coin. And if you don’t have it, it’s not hard to find.
A common currency, worth about 400 old Italian lire. A currency that, since we passed to use the single currency, we often overlook, tending to round everything to an euro.
How this coin is too quickly eliminated by the purses of the housewives or by the pocket of some gentlemen, maybe as a gratuity for a parking or donation to an unfortunate, so often this coin passes between our hands without we stop to evaluate what appears on the “national” face of this money.
Each European country, in fact, chose something personal to affect its version of the eurocent. As France has included the Marianna and Spain Miguel De Cervantes, Italy also made its choice, at the time of the introduction of the euro. But what did we choose?
That sort of incomprehensible “monster” that appears on the back of the Italian 20 cents is actually one of the most important works of art of the twentieth century. This is “Forme Uniche della Continuità e dello Spazio” by Umberto Boccioni.
Boccioni was first painter and worked in Milan. With the birth of Futurism, he approached Marinetti and the new artistic current. Then, he passed from painting to sculpture, and in 1913 he made this work in plaster, now exposed to the museum of the twentieth century.
With unique shapes, Boccioni simply wanted to represent the fusion of movement with space. A simpler concept than it might seem. He succeeded in representing a private human figure of some parts. In practice, it is a man represented as an anatomical section rather than in its entirety.
Usually we are accustomed to seeing unique shapes like work shooting sideways. The extraordinary of the sculpture of Boccioni is, however, in the fact that, according to the position in which we place ourselves in relation to it “Forme Uniche” appears as ever changing.
It is not a work that can be seen in a static way. To see and understand it, unique forms must be admired by multiple points of the plan.
According to the position of the observer, in fact, on one side it twists and on the other expands. It’s the aerodynamics that become alive.
Very good, beautiful idea…ma what does it have to do with wine?
Well, this is probably a question that someone will definitely will ask himself, while reading our piece.
The answer, however, is simpler than ever.
The Falanghina is one of the most cultivated vines in Campania. It is located in the Benevento, in Irpinia, and also here, in the heart of the Metropolitan vineyard of Naples. You usually drink fresh it, but this wine lends itself to interesting evolutions.
During the visit at Astroni we tasted different vintages of this Falanghina, from the young to the sparkling up to the more mature one, a 2003 preserved by the Varchetta with much love. Each of those wines told us something about how this grape evolves and how it fits perfectly with the environment.
It is sapid and with iodinated note in Naples, it is herbaceous in Avellino. In Benevento it has spicy notes and a taste of honey, especially in the most advanced versions.
What better story to tell for this beautiful grape rather than the one of a work of art changeable, whose variables depend on the position in which it is cultivated?
We are sure that Boccioni was the best way to value this precious commodity of our land. Think of the opera while you drink a few different… it will be a life experience, more than just a tasting.
