Aidan Salakhova is the new designer of the Abrau Art Collection

Abrau-Durso proudly presents a creative collaboration within the Abrau Art Collection annual project co-authored with the famous artist, sculptor and public figure - Aidan Salakhova. In 2023, the dialogue between the art of Russia and Azerbaijan in the design of the Imperial Vintage Brut sparkling wine symbolizes the appearance on the map of the Abrau-Durso Group of a foreign asset - the Az Abrau winery in Azerbaijan.

Since 2015, Abrau-Durso has been producing limited collections of sparkling wines in collaboration with artists and representatives of various art forms within the Abrau Art Collection special project. Previously, such famous artists as Boris Messerer, Pavel Pepperstein, Erik Bulatov, Natalia Nesterova, Igor Shelkovsky designed label and style of sparkling wines. The Abrau Art Collection is a combination of Abrau-Durso winemaking traditions with the artistic ideas of famous masters. Each new work is a dialogue between the artists' imaginative world and the wine house heritage, which is built through a color palette, shapes, symbols and various decorative elements.

This year, the designer was Aidan Salakhova, a bright representative of the modern school of art. She was born in Moscow in a many-sided creative family. Her father, Tahir Salakhov, is a famous Azerbaijani and Russian painter, former vice-president of the Russian Academy of Arts. His work is widely known in Russia and the former Soviet Union countries. Aidan's maternal grandmother, Tamara Khanum, is a legendary dancer, singer, choreographer and theater worker.

In 1987, Aidan graduated from the Moscow State Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov; her creative path began in a critical period, at the turn of the eighties and nineties of the last century. In 1992, the artist founded her own gallery "Aidan". Today, Aidan Salakhova's works are represented in private and public collections, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the François Pinault Foundation, the Teutloff Museum, as well as in the private collections of Pierre-Christian Brochet, Viktor Bondarenko, Vladimir Nekrasov and many others.

Aidan Salakhova is a bright, non-trivial and impressive master with her own handwriting and sense of style. Being a bearer of the cultural codes of two countries: Russia and Azerbaijan, Aidan combines their traditions in her art. In her works, the artist turns to history, explores the interaction between the aesthetics of East and West. In her figurative language, the author combines the metaphors of modernity, rethinks traditional oriental art and presents the viewer with new interpretations of esoteric motifs.

Being one of the most charismatic and courageous representatives of our time, Aidan creates a relevant context, changing the usual outlook on life, and also preserves the artistic Azerbaijani traditions, which makes the collaboration especially symbolic, because quite recently the Abrau-Durso Russian Wine House announced its entry into a new market. The Azerbaijani winery "Sheki Sharab" (now Az Abrau) became part of the Abrau-Durso Group in 2021. Among the plans of Abrau-Durso in Azerbaijan is to increase production volumes, launch tourist and gastronomic projects.    

The new packaging and label design of the limited Abrau Art Collection reflects Aidan Salakhova's attitude to painting and creativity in general, it literally makes you look at familiar things from a different angle. Thin, elegant lines outline a mysterious, almost hypnotizing female look, continuing the theme of the feminine, which runs as a leitmotif through the artist's work, and the black-and-gold palette and oriental motifs that can be traced in the work emphasize her unique artistic style, combining traditional oriental and modern creative elements.

The project presents the Imperial Vintage Brut 2018 collection sparkling wine, created from Chardonnay and Riesling grapes varieties according to the classic champagne technology with aging in the Abrau-Durso mountain tunnels for more than three years. The wine has an exquisite light golden hue with a bright sheen and echoes the color palette of the new design, the subtle play of bubbles hypnotizes as the look depicted on the label. The collection is produced in an exclusive gift edition of 900 bottles in magnums of 1.5 liters. The Imperial Vintage Brut collection sparkling wine is distinguished by its freshness and bright apple-citrus hues with tones of brioche, apple jam and melted cream. The composition ends with a mineral aftertaste.