Choosing a wine from the selection offered by Salvador Dali's Surrealist wine card must be something extraordinary! For the first time in 40 years, The Wines of Gala, Dalí's unusual wine guide is republished. Now an even wider circle of admirers of the great Surrealist will be able to know what "Wines of Frivolity", "Wines of the Impossible", and "Wines of Light" are, just for £ 50.
Last published by Taschen in 1978, the reprinted book is a follow-up to the best-selling Les Dîners de Gala, which was a gastronomic romp through the feasts he used to prepare during the 70s. The Wines of Gala is Salvador Dalí's unique guide to wine grapes and their origin.
Bursting with imagery, the book features over 140 appropriated artworks and collages collected and created by Dalí.
Dalí created artwork based on his emotions, memories, and dreams, the artist chose the similar approach to organize the wines in the book by how they influenced his mood. So the reader gets appropriately imaginative classifications including such section titles as "Wines of Frivolity," "Wines of the Impossible," and "Wines of Light."
A section in the book also outlines Dalí's method of ordering wine by emotional experience, quoting the artist’s famous credo: "A real connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes of its secrets."
The first section is dedicated to "Ten Divine Dalí Wines," an overview of 10 important wine-growing regions written by a reputable scholar, an artist Max Gerard. Gerard tells the stories and legends of the ten wine regions ranging from Shiraz and Bordeaux to Crete and California, that produce the wines Dali loved and respected. The processes of blending, capping and bottling wine is offered in an engaging way, so you get a kind of bouquet of emotions from the famous art critic.
The second section develops Dalí's revolutionary ordering of wine by emotional experience. Perhaps you will like Dali’s method to classify wines dividing them into "Wines of Frivolity," "Wines of the Impossible," and "Wines of Light." For example, Muscat and Beaujolais are the "wines of joy", and drinks of sunny California are "wines of generosity" according to the Surrealist. You will also learn how to behave in the company of wines, how to serve them and how to drink them. The authorship of this section belongs to the winemaker Louis Oriza.
Rather than any prescriptive classification, it’s a flamboyant, free-flowing manifesto in favor of taste and feeling.
Dalí also included what is now considered one of the greatest works from his late "Nuclear Mystic" phase, The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955), which sets the iconic biblical scene in a translucent dodecahedron-shaped space before a Catalonian coastal landscape
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Poetry of America
1943, 116×79 cm
The 296-page wine bible "The Wines of Gala" is published in English, French, German and Spanish. Flawless printing, lavish illustrations and excellent texts make this book a wonderful gift to the lovers of wine and Surrealism
, all "in one bottle". On the website of the publisher the edition is available for 49,99 pounds. Chin-chin!
Based on the materials of thisiscolossal.com, taschen.com.
Title illustration and the other illustrations are from "The Wine of Gala" by Salvador Dali. Source: taschen.com
Title illustration and the other illustrations are from "The Wine of Gala" by Salvador Dali. Source: taschen.com
