VESPER WINE COLLECTION

The development company Vesper, known for its reference residences, has long proved its dedication to various creative initiatives. For 11 years, Vesper has been supporting contemporary art in different ways and presenting collaborations with museums, art galleries and artists from around the world, such as Damien Hirst, Recycle Group, AES+F, Valery Koshlyakov, Vladimir Potapov, Anatoly Akue.

These initiatives are part of the company's culture, setting aesthetic trends in the real estate segment. The new Vesper project is dedicated to collecting noble drinks. Each year the company will select a winery and a limited wine edition, the label of which will be personalized by one of the contemporary artists.

 
This year, the Vesper team researched legendary wineries and, together with Golubitskoe Estate experts, chose red wine Golubitskoe Estate Vesper Selection, a drink with a complicated and noble taste, complex and velvety flavor.

There is a unique combination of natural conditions in the Golubitskoye Estate winery: cold cyclones do not reach the Golubitskaya Strelka, and the warm season begins earlier than on the peninsula. Golubitskaya Strelka is one of the few wine geographical zones with a protected designation of origin. This status guarantees that the wines are made only from grapes grown in this territory, taking into account strict requirements at each stage of production.

 
At Golubitskoe Estate, authentic wines are created only from classic grape varieties grown on their own land. The seedlings were brought from nurseries in Italy and Austria in 2009. For the production of Golubitskoe Estate Vesper Selection, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and pinot noir grape varieties are used. The drink is aged for 12 months in French barriques, and then for at least another 24 months in bottles. The result is a wine with a rich dark ruby color with a garnet hue, a bright and multi-layered flavor with an individual profile of black berries and spices.

For the new Vesper project, Nestor Engelke, a woodworking virtuoso and the inventor of the hatchet technique, created a work in his own style — “Deer”, which continues the “Wooden Portraits” series. A graduate of the Academic Art Lyceum named after B.V. Ioganson and a member of the Sever-7 art group, Nestor has been introducing the viewer to his original axe-painting method for more than 10 years, carving recognizable images from classical art, Russian literature and architecture in miniature on the wood.

 
Pop art artists have already used the method of transferring an image onto unusual materials. At the same time, Nestor drew inspiration from old Moscow architecture in the wooden classicism of Zamoskvorechye. The artist turns three-dimensional objects and images into a kind of negative on wood, which reveal the nobility of texture on closer examination.

Engelke's work resemble Fayum portraits — ancient drawings on wooden tablets that had magical powers. The deer is a symbol of life, success and abundance, and in mythology it appears as a wonderful messenger and guide, showing heroes the path to their goal. Interpretations of the deer symbol multiply in the artist’s works. 

 
He interacts with the image again and again, as trying to get to the truth. The portrait is based on the “performative posing and active drawing” project of the group “North-7”. What is important here is the artistic act itself, the action, namely the chopping, cutting out a proto-image, a proto-drawing in some material (in this case, wood). “The Deer” itself is a collective image in which one can feel all the pincers and splinters in the author’s soul at that moment when his hand was raised above the wooden shield.

 
A limited edition Golubitskoe Estate Vesper Selection cuvée with a label personalized by artist Nestor Engelke will be available for Vesper customers, partners and friends.

 
Nestor Engelke's work "Deer", created specifically for the art project Vesper with the support of the OVCHARENKO gallery, is presented at the first large-scale industrial exhibition of contemporary art |catalog|, which is held by the Association of Galleries from 14 to 17 December. The fair brought together about 30 contemporary art galleries from different Russian cities.