SPAZIO DELL'UVA E DEL VINO
[GRAPE AND WINE AREA] - SUV

Wunderkammer, or chamber of wonders or cabinet of curiosities or wonders in English, is a German term which refers to the spaces in which, from the 16th to the 18th century, collectors preserved collections of extraordinary objects: mirabilia, or things that aroused wonder. The Wunderkammer can be considered a sort of archetype of the museum, however without the historical characteristics and without a precise method of cataloguing.

The Grape and Wine Area (“Spazio dell’Uva e del Vino”, or SUV for short) is a modern Wunderkammer inspired by a 1989 short story written by Ottavio Missoni about 12 hours (from noon to midnight) spent in a tavern in Trieste. Thanks to this text, a unique exhibition of objects, tools, posters, manuscripts, new and old books and various other mirabilia arose; their stories are recounted in the two books entitled “Vite ambulante. Nuove cattedre ambulanti di Enologia e Viticultura” (“The Wandering Vine. New Itinerant Teachers of Oenology and Viticulture”) and “Accidenti, malattie e parassiti della vite” (“Damages, Diseases and Parasites of the Vine”) (Edizioni SUV, 2014). This is not a proper, old-fashioned museum, with a predetermined path following a chronological order, but an exhibition based on associations and analogies, references and random happenings. Many fragments of stories to tell a single one: the story of wine and its relationship with man.