Exuberant businessman, art collector and former investment banker, he created what he says is the smallest vineyard in the world atop a palace.
Tullio Masoni makes one of the most unique wines in the world, but he doesn’t want you to drink it. An exuberant businessman, art collector and former investment banker, he created what he says is the world’s smallest vineyard atop a 16th-century palace in the heart of Reggio Emilia.
The city is famous for being the birthplace of the “tricolor” Italian national flag. It also lies between Parma and Modena, on a stretch of land that has given Italy some of its best-known exports, including Ferrari and Lamborghini supercars and culinary items like lasagna, tortellini, Prosciutto di Parma and Ragù alla Bolognese.
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That Masoni wine doesn’t end up on too many tables with these edibles probably makes sense when you consider its beginnings. He grows his grapes on the roof of Via Mari 10 – the address of the building and the name of the wine itself – a remarkable site because in 1859 it was visited by Giuseppe Garibaldi, the revolutionary who helped unify Italy.
“My father liked winemaking,” he said. “I inherited a real vineyard in the countryside around Reggio Emilia, but when I looked at the books, I realized I would have spent more money on it than I would have earned it – so I sold it.”
“However, 20 years later, I regretted it, so I made a pocket vineyard.”
At just over 60 square meters, Via Mari 10 produces just 29 bottles of red wine a year, which Masoni costs about $5,000 each. Appropriate for the cost, the bottles aren’t sold in a wine shop, but in an art gallery – Bonioni Arte – just a few blocks away.
“My wine is a form of artistic expression, a philosophical provocation, something to keep in the living room to chat with your friends and tell about the lunatic who put a vineyard on your roof,” said Masoni, who likens his urban vineyard to “ Bicycle Wheel” by French artist Marcel Duchamp – a real bicycle wheel that he mounted on a stool in his Paris studio in 1913. It then informed Duchamp’s famous series of common objects presented as art, called Readymades.
“If you see a bicycle wheel in a living room instead of a workshop, you realize how beautiful it is,” Masoni said. “My vineyard is like this: it’s unexpected; stimulates the brain; awakens new thoughts.”
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