Art and good wine have always been amongst Valentino's greatest loves. In
this case, he followed in family tradition as his grandfather was a wine
producer, his mother ran an Inn and his father owned a hotel near Vicenza.
In 1959 Valentino moved to London, beginning a career as sommelier at the
'Twenty One Club'. This was where he developed his skills and expertise in
the wine world. In 1983 he joined the prestigious 'Harry's Bar', one of
England's most exclusive club restaurants as the head sommelier. To this
day, he remains an acting consultant, despite having retired 2 years ago.
Valentino's love of the opera as well as painting and drawing figurative art
were cultivated as hobbies at an early age. They have grown into notable
talents. Ingeniously, Valentino discovered a way of combining his three
pursuits...depicting scenes from various operas in which wine is being
drunk, mentioned or alluded to by using collages made up of wine labels.
These labels are from the countries or regions where the opera was set,
created or first performed. "Many books have been written about opera and
love, politics and tragedy," Valentino explains,"but no one has examined the
relationship between opera and wine." This union invented by Valentino
Monticello is without question original as well as stimulating. He hopes to
emphasize that this idea is not intended to publicise any particular product
but to indirectly promote wine itself using this unusual vehicle of cultural
communication.
Each collage takes him several months to complete and incorporates as many
as 600 labels. There is no drawing; every last detail is cut from the
material used. Opera scenes made with wine labels from France, Italy,
Germany and Spain have been easy since both wine and opera are widely
popular. Where Valentino runs into trouble is with obtaining wine labels
from Russia, a nation with a rich operatic tradition but which hardly sells
any wine to Western Europe...Just the opposite happens when trying to find
an opera set in New Zealand...a strong wine exporter.
Valentino is very clever working through these obstacles. With all the
countries that produce and export wine as well as the many countries that
appreciate the opera, he has much to choose from.
