300-year-old needle painting and contemporary art as the new wine bottle design for the foundation's wines
Tuesday, 10 December 2019
It is the combination of tradition and innovation that Admont Abbey was able to present today at the launch of the new range of labels for its own Dveri-Pax winery. Valuable works of art from the monastery's own collection were used for the new wine labels: on the one hand, excerpts from nine important paintings from the monastery's collection were used, and on the other, images of seven sacred textiles from the parament collection. "With the new label line, we are focussing even more strongly on the independence and identity of our abbey wines," said Franz Pichler, Economic Director of Admont Abbey, at the presentation on Tuesday in the manuscript room of the world-famous abbey library.
The wines from the 800-year-old Dveri Pax winery, based in Jarenina, Slovenia, now not only shine in an artistic design, but also tell a piece of the eventful - and almost thousand-year-old - history of the Admont Benedictine monastery with their new labels. One highlight: almost 300 years after his death, it is Frater Benno Haan whose needle painting is now being revived on the labels of Dveri-Pax wines: the artistic embroiderer, who worked at Admont Abbey from 1656 to 1720, used his impressive embroidery technique - a combination of silk, gold and silver embroidery - to create the historic, sacred textiles that are still in use today and whose photographed details now form the design of the new labels for the premium line of Dveri-Pax wines.
In contrast, contemporary paintings from the abbey's art collection of more than a thousand exhibits were chosen for the classical line. A total of nine excerpts from the works of important artists are on display. Five by Alfred Klinkan and one each by Otto Zitko, Tobias Pils, Rudi Molacek, Christoph Schmidberger and the Dutch artist Margriet Smulders. "This is also a commitment to the diversity of our establishment and our connection to the winery," explains Artistic Director Michael Braunsteiner.
"The 945-year history of Admont Abbey is characterised by faith and tradition, but also by innovation. Values that we share with the people of the region and that are also essential for our wines," says Gerhard Hafner, Abbot of the Benedictine monastery, who is delighted that the wines exported all over the world now also tell a piece of the monastery's eventful history from Asia to the USA.
According to economic director Pichler, a total of around 20 million euros has been invested in the Dveri-Pax winery over the past 25 years. With great success: today, the winery owned by the Admont Benedictine monks is one of the top 10 wineries in Europe and regularly receives the highest honours in the most important international wine magazines, such as the renowned Decanter.
The Dveri-Pax vineyards cover 73 hectares and are located in Jarenina, Slovenia, just a few kilometres from the Styrian border with Spielberg. Around 300,000 litres of wine are pressed here every year. And this is of the highest quality, as cellar master Danilo Flakus emphasises: "We pick the grapes traditionally by hand and carefully cut them from the vine. In winemaking, we combine our expertise and experience from centuries of tradition with state-of-the-art technology. The result of the ripening process is wonderfully harmonious wines that are characterised by freshness, smooth, fruity flavours and the highest quality of each individual variety. However, the most important characteristic of all our wines is their exceptional drinkability."