Giulia

A journey to discover The Divine Comedy with Gentlebrand special edition packaging

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself astray in a dark wood where the straight road had been lost…””, a famous passage that marks the beginning of one of the most famous journeys in the world, Dante’s imaginary walk through the otherworldly realms: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, Gentlebrand celebrates the father of the Italian language by illustrating the Divine Comedy with Curtai, a special limited edition of wines. A triptych to be exact, because three is the number of places visited by Dante but also the stately number that often appears in his verses.

Curtai, is a brand fruit of the creative mind of Gentlebrand, a name linked to the Friulian dialect that refers to Breccia, heart and path, the Curtai triptych is in fact a journey to discover the taste and tradition of local wines, a project to be savored rich of references and syllogisms, thanks to the collaboration of two important experts. Anna Di Giusto, a scholar of the Divine Comedy who identified the most salient passages of the work translated into Friulian, and Otto D’Ambra, an Italian illustrator based in London famous for telling the characteristics of people and the society that surrounds them through animal figures and who, based on the selected extracts, created three exclusive illustrations.

The triptych
Curtai’s journey begins with Hell and an intense and velvety Ruby red Merlot. A decorative ribbon descends from the red capsule that symbolizes the different circles imagined by Dante and the fall of Lucifer from the sky, colors and textures of the materials convey fear and darkness as Dante did with the opening line “Leave all hope ye who enter here”. We continue with Purgatory, the abode of imperfect souls waiting for a better future. The imperfect symmetry of the composition and the Brown color together with a careful choice of papers and finishes that want to convey materiality, are a stylistic choice aimed at conveying a feeling of incompleteness and uncertainty, but also a passage between worlds. Purgatory represents nothing more than the anticipation of perfection and the balance that we will savor with the soft taste and delicate nuances typical of Malvasia. Paradise is therefore represented by a delicate bottle, enriched with precious finishes with gold and white details and the application of a feather, a symbol of purity of the soul, of the omnipotence of the divine and of “the love that moves the sun and the other stars ”

The illustrations
Each bottle is different in terms of the type of materials chosen, finishes and decorations of the label, a sensorial, gustatory but also artistic discovery thanks to Otto’s illustrations to which multiple meanings can be given. Hell is represented by a fish with a human face closed in the coils of a snake inspired by the passage related to the bedlam of thieves to which he wanted to give a more modern interpretation, linked to our society.

The innocent part of the person is represented by the fish that is overwhelmed, wrapped and punished by itself, by its diabolical snakes that crawl into its unconscious hidden by the mask of its ego. The hybrid figures of the mysterious-looking metamorphic animals of Purgatory represent the uncertainty of souls in pain and the exchange of lion-bird glances recalls the internal introspection of each one. The abstract illustration of the wings alone and the delicate use of white gives grandeur, importance and balance and represents an ethereal and impalpable world.

A project that celebrates Dante and Gentlebrand’s passion for Packaging Design.