Museo del vino (Torgiano)

The Wine Museum of Torgiano (Umbria, Italy) is a private museum, specialized and completely dedicated to the culture of wine. Located in an area of wine production, the museum was founded by the wine producers Giorgio Lungarotti, owner and founder of Cantine Lungarotti Winery and his wife Maria Grazia Marchetti in 1974 and is run, together with the Olive and oil Museum, by the Lungarotti Foundation, which promotes studies, cultural events and exhibitions aimed at enhancing the wine and olive oil economy. Through its archaeological, ethnographic and arts collections, the museum provides information on the role of wine in western culture, where wine has always been highly valued not only for its energetic and strengthening properties but also as a cultural product.

The collections
The collection is arranged in thematic areas. "In each room a number of fine and often rare objects illustrate a particular subject area, suggesting connections with other themes that enrich the overall picture". The first room explains the Middle-East roots of viticulture and how it reached the Mediterranean basin, through several pieces of archaeology from the Bronze Age to the late-ancient era, with particular attention to Etruscan culture. Among the items on display, there is the lip cup attributed to Phrynos Painter, one of the Little masters. Rooms 2 to 8 show viticulture techniques used in Umbria. Many working tools well illustrate the yearly wine cycle and traditional techniques. A varied section also illustrates places and ways of wine consumption. The basement is home to a large room dedicated to winemaking, with large presses, distillers, a bottling machine and other objects. Room 6 shows how Vin Santo is made. The itinerary follows illustrating crafts related to wine (coopers, smiths etc.) and a large collection of tools. Room 8 describes regulation about harvesting-time, usage and trade of wine, to pass to local handicraft and viniculture in rooms 9 and 10. Rooms 11 to 15 are dedicated to pottery, with a rich collection of ceramics coming from the most prestigious pottery-producing regions of Italy. The collection of pottery is arranged according to the following thematic division: “wine as food” (measures, bottles, etc.), “wine as a medicine” (jars, mortars, pharmaceutical containers, books, etc.) and finally “wine and mythology” (symbolic and story-telling decorations mainly related to Dionysos/Bacchus, including works by Mastro Giorgio Andreoli and Girolamo della Robbia). Room 16 boasts the largest existing collection of irons for wafer, in Umbria usually served with Vin Santo. Room 17 hosts a rich collection of engravings and sketches, made of about 600 pieces concerning dionysian scenes with pictures by authors like Mantegna, Piranesi, Picasso. Room 18 is dedicated to ex libris. The visit ends in room 19 where fiction and non-fiction ancient books about wine are exposed.