Hosting an artist in residence so that he or she can leave his or her work on site is a trend among wine-growing estates. For an estate, inviting an artist to paint, sculpt or photograph, with his or her feet in the vineyard, adds a poetic touch to daily work and provides a contemporary flourish to historic residences. The result also supports wine tourism activities.

"Art also gives visibility to the brand," said Rémy Graillot, a former real estate financier who has recently become a winegrower and owner of the Loire Valley winery Château de Lestang, located in Sancerre. Its first vintage of Lestang 1573 (the year of the first traces of vines on the site), 26,500 bottles, was released in 2023. Graillot admitted that he was a little surprised to see Mathias Kiss turn up in his vineyard in shorts and bare feet, in the middle of winter. "I know you can't trust an artist's by how he looks, but I didn't really see what he was going to do." He just let Kiss create, as is the rule when an artist arrives at a winery.

"I fell in love with the man," said Kiss. The visual artist took over the former orangery, which has been transformed into a wine storehouse. His small mirrors glide along the walls from the tasting room to the cellar in the basement. On the façade, they cover a corner of the building, opening up a series of windows onto the vines planted on the other side of the property.

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