Ornellaia raises €202.700 for the art foundation Beyeler

Owners of Ornellaia, the Super Tuscan Italian wine brand, has raised €202,700 for the Foundation Beyeler art museum in Basel.

Ornellaia’s Vendemmia d’Artista project has now donated more than €1.5 million to art foundations across the globe.

For the 7th edition of Vendemmia d’Artista, the project that Ornellaia launched in 2009, which commissions an artist of world fame to interpret the distinctive character of each individual vintage, the producer selected Swiss artist John Armleder to exercise his creativity for Ornellaia 2012 “L’Incanto” (The Enchantment).


An exclusive charity auction was organised on 23 April, which included nine of the special-edition bottles created by John Armleder. Stephen Mould, Sotheby’s senior director-head of European wine department, oversaw the bidding, which got to €202,700.

Other Vendemmia d’Artista include: the Whitney Museum in New York, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Royal Opera House in London, and the H2 Foundation in Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan and the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto.

John Armleder lives between Geneva and New York. He is recognised as one of Switzerland’s most outstanding and influential artists of his generation.