In the past I have been a great collector of Swatch watches. In 1992 I saw the preparatory sketch designed by Sam Francis for the model with the same name. The artist dipped his brush and began to paint over the silhouette of the watch drawn on paper. He went outside the edges, it was obvious. In that instant I was blinded by the brilliance of the Swatch product. A very simple shape that over the years was open to endless interpretations. A small blank canvas over which literally anything has been painted. While other manufacturers were scrambling to come up with models different from each other, Swatch understood that creativity could have a well-defined boundary. A shape. A container. Within which there would be no limits. I see a lot of similarities there with a bottle of wine. I am not talking about the product itself, about its many qualities, but about the fact that wine will always need a container, and that container will always need the attention of a creative. Just as the gears in a Swatch need a form to contain them. Is it wrong to say that, at least in the case of Swatch, form has become distinctly more important than substance? How many thousands of graphic and artistic speculations have been made within that form? How many of those graphic designers and artists knew and know how to assemble a watch…?

14.3 is my child’s date of birth. With an image stolen from the record industry, I would like 14.3 to be seen as a sort of “super band” in the world of wine communication. Each member of this creative group comes from different paths, each – over the years – has become a virtuoso in his own field. From photography to graphics, from 3D to web design. After having served world-class clients with these skills, I imagined I could bring them together and put them at the service of the land I grew up in. I imagined that the culture acquired over the years, the experience accumulated in such different fields, the knowledge of multiple sides of the advertising universe, could really have something to say in the world of oenology, something important and unexpected…