The exhibition
The exhibition begins with pictures and images of a virtual vineyard: the flowing of time, the succession of the seasons and the changes in the techniques are virtually represented with the circular motion of a wheel.
The room is sided by two huge display panels with pictures of rows of vine, whose virtual leaves and bunches of grapes are leaflets, grand-ducal notifications, archive sources and manuals of the “Accademia dei Georgofili” in Florence.

In this first room are also documents and exhibits regarding the innovative techniques brought by Vittorio Albizi during last century and slides and short films (from the 1920s to the 1950s) about the funny side of the grape picking process.
You enter now the old cellars: on one side are the tools and documents of the land owners; on the other are some exhibits linked to the sharecropping farming system.
In the middle of this second room, is a restored wooden vat in which some openings have been carved out: it is possible to smell odours, listen to sounds, see colours and hear words related to the fascinating process of alcoholic fermentation. A video shows the modern techniques of the process.

A long wall covered with fiascos and bottles introduces the visitor to the third room, dedicated to all the different types of containers in which wine used to be stored. The tools used to build barrels are displayed and a catalogue illustrates the industrialized process of making fiascos (Del Vivo glassworks). Once produced, fiascos were covered with straw by women working at home, according to a sort of putting out system (video).

The consumption and the trade of wine are displayed in a very symbolic way.
Hanging from the side walls of the room, big ‘labels’ (the visitor must open them, as if they were doors) containing information about the wine trade, from the Etruscan age to the present. In the centre of the room is a huge ‘box’, resembling the typical package of traditional wine bottles: the visitor can enter it to find a small maze where sounds, images and colours evoke the heady sensations produced by wine. Behind the ‘box’ are two wooden tables: one from a tavern, the other from a master’s cellar. On each both them are brochures and leaflets about facts typical of the two different environments. The exhibition finishes with material (books, leaflets, videos,..) at the disposal of each visitor.