From June 27 to July 6, Melodia del Vino will combine wine tasting and music performances in impressive locations throughout Tuscany. This annual event is a journey that unveils the region’s artistic and historical heritage as well as its best wines, with visits to age-old castles, country estates and cutting-edge cellars. The star-studded calendar of events will escort visitors on a magical tour featuring unashamedly fine wines, glorious landscapes and promising performances by renowned artists.
Marc Laforêt and Michel Gotlib have an idea: offer the very best of music, wine and cultural heritage—together as one experience. A decade ago, they started the highly acclaimed French festival Grands Crus Musicaux, in the Bordeaux region. The plan to create a similar version in Italy came about in the summer of 2010, in the wake of a meeting between the organisers and music lover Francis Bouquillon, son of sculptor Albert Bouquillon, who won the Prix de Rome scholarship for arts students in 1934. The Tuscan Region decided to come on board as a partner of the event, as did owners of prestigious venues to host the festival’s concerts.
Now in its third year, Melodia del Vino draws those living in Tuscany and people from farther afield, but its goal is to become a destination event for tourists and lovers of Tuscany. The festival is also a symbolic continuation of a long and rich tradition of alliance and friendship between Tuscany and France, dating back from the House of Medici to the House of Lorraine.
Melodia del Vino will swirl its way through four Tuscan provinces—Florence, Livorno, Siena and Grosseto—dropping in on some of the region’s loveliest wine-making estates. This year’s event has been made possible thanks to the Antinori, Moretti, Mariani, Zonin and Panerai families, who have generously welcomed the event to their estates. The 2013 festival will consist of five classical music concerts, with a Tuscan wine-tasting session welcoming guests before the first notes are sounded.
This year Melodia del Vino will start at the prestigious Cantina Antinori, in Bargino, near San Casciano Val di Pesa. Designed by Archea Associati, these extraordinary cellars are buried in the hillside and covered with vines. Here, on June 27, the young Ukrainian pianist Alexander Romanovsky will perform at the festival’s opening concert. Born in 1984, Romanovsky began playing at piano recitals across Northern Europe at the tender age of 11. In 1997 he moved to Imola with his family to study at the international piano academy, which marked the beginning of his musical career. At the age of 17, he won first prize in the renowned Italian Busoni Competition in Italy and since 2007 has released two critically acclaimed CDs on the Decca music label.
The second concert will be held on June 29 at Cantina Petra, in Suvereto, with the first of two piano performances by the festival’s French artistic director Marc Laforêt. At the Moretti family winery, designed by Mario Botta, Laforêt will perform a duet with another internationally renowned pianist, François-René Duchâble. This is a true one-off: in 2003 this great French pianist had in fact declared that he would no longer perform in formal public concerts, disillusioned with their elitist approach. In a dramatic flourish, he dropped a piano from a helicopter into a lake near Nice.
On July 2, Melodia del Vino heads south of Siena. For the third year running, one of the festival’s concerts will be held at stunning medieval Castello Banfi, in Montalcino, with Laforêt at the piano and Henri Demarquette on the cello. Born in 1970, Demarquette often performs contemporary compositions and has a penchant for rare pieces. His open approach to music is reflected in his discography and many of Demarquette’s recordings have received awards in France and overseas.
The July 4 concert will be held at breathtaking Tenuta Rocca di Montemassi, in Roccastrada, in the province of Grosseto, featuring a piano recital by young Italian Beatrice Rana, hailed as a rising star on the international music scene. Born to a family of musicians, she made her debut in an orchestra at just 9 years old, performing Bach’s Concerto in F minor. In June 2011, she won first prize at the Montreal International Music Competition.
Closing the festival on July 6 is a piano concert by influential virtuoso Giovanni Bellucci at eco-friendly Tenuta Rocca di Frassinello, in Gavorrano, in the cellar designed by Renzo Piano.
Fine wines, sublime music and beautiful locations: Melodia del Vino is surely one of the loveliest ways to spend an early summer’s evening in the heart of Tuscany.
Tickets are available from Box Office distribution points throughout Tuscany and online at http://tinyurl.com/m2apnnn. They can also be purchased directly at each event location from 6:30 pm onwards on the day of the performance. See the website www.melodiadelvino.it for further information.
