LG, James Suckling, Atelier Mendini and Alessi on the art and craft of wine

Earlier this year, LG Signature launched a new revolutionary wine cellar with integrated technology and dedicated features that made it less a storage piece and more a dedicated tool for preserving and celebrating wine. The Korean company has since created a small cultural universe around the piece, with further initiatives to cement its commitment to the product. To celebrate the launch of the wine cellar, LG partnered with wine critic James Suckling and with Atelier Mendini and Alessi, to add a multilayered experience to the art of wine.

With a capacity of up to 65 bottles, the cellar limits temperature fluctuation to ensure flavour and texture are preserved. Further features include optimal humidity control, and a multi-temperature facility that allows different wines to be stored in different conditions. The glass door protects bottles from UV light, and tapping it allows an illuminated view inside without opening it (hence protecting the internal temperature). Protecting wine from light, temperature fluctuations and vibration, the cellar was designed with aesthetic as well as practicality in mind, with a careful choice of material, intuitive user features and expertly arranged structure. 

James Suckling's ‘Notes from the Cellar'

Suckling has been working alongside LG’s team to offer insight into storing (and serving) wine. For the occasion, Suckling has created a ‘journey of discovery’ for LG, creating a special (virtual) experience for its customers with a long-distance tasting session that merges his wine expertise with the cellar’s features and capabilities.

Titled ‘Notes from the Cellar’, the session included tips on wine tasting’s most crucial elements, from the right temperature to the most appropriate choice of glassware. ‘Great wine touches your soul, it can be emotional, you taste it and it takes your breath away. That’s what I love about wine, it highlights those [important] moments,’ he says. ‘Wine and wine making is art, but there is also technology with it.’ 

Corkscrew by Alessandro Mendini

To cement its commitment to design, LG Signature also brought back to life Alessandro Mendini’s last known sketch. A piece from his celebrated corkscrew series for Alessi, the limited-edition will complement the wine cellar offering a new layer to the experience of enjoying wine. The corkscrew features Mendini’s characteristic anthropomorphic figure and the late designer’s humorous take on design.

He and LG got together in 2018, when Mendini directed a series of curated exhibitions for the company. Appreciating its technological approach to design, he said at the time: ‘the moment I saw LG Signature products, I sensed that the brand strives for harmony between function and design to the extreme.’

While Mendini himself was not a wine enthusiast (he usually only had a few sips, recall his daughters Fulvia and Elisa Mendini, and ‘preferred red wine, saying it was a healthy antioxidant'), he designed colorful wine labels for his friends’ bottles and of course created the corkscrew, one of the best known and most recognizable contemporary wine tools.

‘We see [this collaboration] as a true celebration of art and technology coming together,' says LG’s Kim Jin-hong.

INFORMATION

lgsignature.com