Natural wine
huile sur toile, 130×160 cm
collective where they produce so-called “natural” wines, meaning without any chemical inputs, nor sulfites—in other words, grape juice fermented—and where they train the younger generations to make wine in this entirely natural way. Many old winemakers with no successor for the vines on which they spent their entire lives, and who refuse to uproot them, readily lease parcels to the young people eager to settle. Here we work the old-fashioned way in joy, if not in intoxication, for we have neither the taste nor the funds to rely on machines. And the vinification is overseen by the palate, by the tastevin, not in a laboratory. This large-format painting could have been titled The Ascension of Bacchus, which is the complete opposite of a crucifixion descent. I worked on it extensively in glaze.
