MONTALCINO SEPTEMBER 14TH CASATO PRIME DONNE AWARD 2024
Maria Canabal’s quote to Montalcino and many young people destined to become positive examples for their peers: artists, pastry chefs, goldsmiths and students
Maria Canabal, the passionate woman of wine and food, becomes the Prima Donna in Montalcino on September 14th 2024 with the Casato Prime Donne award ceremony.
A charismatic character from the female universe, she founded the Parabere Forum which every year brings together 400 women in food and wine from all over the world to create empowerment. In 2015 Maria Canabal was recognized among the “Most Influential Women in Gastronomy” and her cookbooks were awarded the Gourmand Cookbooks Awards as “Best in the World”.
Together with her, the journalistic sections of the Casato Prime Donne Award, were won by the journalists of two of the major national oenology portals: Alessandro Regoli and Irene Chiari of “WineNews“, Loredana Sottile and Gianluca Atzeni of “Trebicchieri” the economic weekly by Gambero Rosso. Together with them, the “Jury Prize” went to Linea Verde, the historic RAI 1 program, for the episode dedicated to the Jewels of Terra di Siena. This last prize will be donated to charity.
Maria Canabal Prima Donna 2024
THE QUOTE TO MONTALCINO BY MARIA CANABAL, PASSIONATE ABOUT WOMEN, WINE AND FOOD
The jury composed of: Donatella Cinelli Colombini (President), Rosy Bindi, Anselma Dell’Olio, Anna Pesenti, Stefania Rossini, Anna Scafuri, Daniela Viglione and the Honorary Jury with Silvio Franceschelli Mayor of Montalcino and Fabrizio Bindocci President of the Brunello Consortium, wanted to dedicate the 2023 edition to Francesca Colombini Cinelli who founded the award and passed away in December 2022.
Maria Canabal wrote her quote to Montalcino which will remain permanently at Casato Prime Donne, the winery that finances the prize and is the first in Italy with an entirely female staff.
“Like Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest, women have long been recognized and celebrated for the crucial role they play as stewards of the earth and biodiversity and for their indispensable contributions to the past, present and future of food. It is women who feed the world.”
A VERY YOUNG ARTIST WHO MAKES YOU THINK ABOUT WOMEN
Maria Canabal’s quote will be accompanied by a contemporary art installation. The author Luigi Corbini is 18 years
L’opera Monna Vite di Luigi Corbini
old and a student at the Liceo Artistico Duccio di Buoninsegna in Siena. The incubator of young talents with which the prize aims to sow opportunities and stimuli in the new generations has allowed him to create his first large-scale work.
Corbini’s installation is entitled “Monna Vite” (3.67m x 4.50 m) and is dedicated to the life-generating forces: woman, earth and the vine plant, symbols of rebirth, love, peace, of joy and revenge over death.
A weathering steel wall with a female bust <<a bit like a contemporary Venus of Willendorf>>, which is repeated in a modular way, rests on a green background. In front of it climbs a large centenary vine in mirrored metal designed in a medieval graphic style. The cultural and chromatic contrast is the stylistic and, ironically provocative, feature of a work that recounts the centuries-old contradictions between sexuality, pleasure and sacredness, relationship with nature and desire for rebirth, with also Christian symbols such as the almond seed which indicates life.
STUDENTS OF THE LICEO LINGUISTICO AND ISTITUTO AGRARIO IN MONTALCINO
The new incubator of the Casato Prime Donne Award involved the students of the 4th year of the Bettino Ricasoli Agricultural Institute of Montalcino who created the video entitled “Agrobiodiversity: feet on the ground and eyes in the future” Stolen beauty” and the 4th year of the Lambruschini Linguistic High School in Montalcino with the video “If Montalcino were”. Both videos show the ability to apply the notions of the school program to investigate and interpret the territory. A direct testimony to the value of study and the possibility of making it immediately usable in work and in the social context.
The young communication talent on which the Casato Prime Donne Award is focusing is Massimiliano Manetti, a student of Master in Business Communication at the University of Siena, who is also a musician chosen by RAI and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the world tour that took him to the San Remo Festival and then in Tunis, Tokyo, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Barcelona, Brussels and St. Petersburg. A mix of different interests that leads him to cross new frontiers by investigating the relationship between music and social media, the domain of streaming and possible future scenarios linked to the use of artificial intelligence.
Dessert ideato da Andrea Sacchetti in occasione del Premio Casato Prime Donne
A PASTRY CHEF FROM PRATO FOR THE GASTRONOMIC EXCELLENCE OF TUSCANY
The talent incubator aims to offer visibility and encouragement to young people capable of arousing emulation among their peers, spreading awareness of how important it is to cultivate one’s potential for personal growth, one’s professional field and the territory in which each one works. To this end, also given the importance of gastronomy for Tuscan tourism, Andrea Sacchetti from the Pasticceria Nuovo Mondo in Prato is valorised. Born in 1996, he is a son of art and trained with masters of the calibre of Alessandro Dalmasso and Angelo Musa. In April 2022 he took the first step of the podium in the first edition of the “Mille e un Babà” contest. For the Prima Donna 2023 he created the “Essenza” cake dedicated to the delicacy and resistance of the female soul symbolically expressed by apples and roses, both scented, which make up a dessert of spectacular scenic beauty.
3 FEMALE GOLDSMITH ARTISTS FROM THE LAO IN FLORENCE
Le Arti Orafe Firenze – Jewellery School
Still young, very talented art teachers on the catwalk. They are 3 female goldsmiths from the LAO Le Arti Orafe Jewellery School in Florence, a training centre which, under the guidance of Giò Carbone, teaches young people from all over the world in the footsteps of the great Florentine tradition of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Benvenuto Cellini. Like the illustrious masters of the past, the 3 goldsmiths of today have interpreted the jewel in a cultured way, elevating the precious objects to the level of works of art and taking inspiration from three great charismatic women in the female universe: Miriam Mafai, Rita Levi Montalcini and Margherita Hack.
Martina Bianchi, 22 years old, graduated from the Liceo Artistico Petrocchi di Pistoia in fashion and fabric design, was inspired by the discoveries of the late Florentine astrophysicist on giant Cepheid stars that pulsate and rhythmically increase and decrease their diameter.
Beatrice Campagna, 25 years old, from the Petrocchi Art School in Pistoia where she studied jewellery design, created small silver capsules containing fragments of books by Miriam Mafai.
Asia Roccazzella, 22 years old with a scientific high school diploma, reproduced Rita Levi Montalcini’s discovery on the growth factor of the nerve fibre on foil.
Overall, the 2024 Casato Prime Donne Award, in its new role as an incubator of youth talent, is becoming an example of interaction between the agricultural world and civil society. Its highlight is the awards ceremony but it unfolds its activity throughout the year leaving positive and profound traces in the world of women and young people.