What’s the niche wine label that Rick Owens, Michèle Lamy, Bella Hadid, Pusha T, A$AP Rocky, Offset, Skepta and Luka Sabbat all love?
There’s an eclectic pair of Millennial brothers behind Katkoot, and more anecdotes than one would expect from an indie player in the luxury winemaking sphere.
For one, the brand’s name — which means “little bird,” or “precious little thing” in Arabic — was inspired by the nickname Lamy attributed to Giovanni Leonardo Bassan, one of the two founding brothers.
He and his sibling Francesco Vittorio Bassan were born five years apart but almost look like identical twins, except they couldn’t be more different.
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Giovanni is an artist and sculptor represented by The Mine Gallery in Dubai, as well as an art and design consultant who left his native Italian region of Veneto to jumpstart a career in Paris, where he is based working as Rick Owens’ head of furniture, among other gigs. Francesco, an economics and management graduate, stayed close to home, nurturing his passion for winemaking and training as a sommelier, which partly ran in his veins as the duo had a bottler grandfather.
The combination of their passions and attitudes resulted in their own wine label, which was established in 2018.
“We have grown up [developing] an appreciation for wine and spirits, but this is a story linked mainly to my brother and me,” says Giovanni, Zooming in from Paris.
Katkoot is his brainchild, established six years ago based on a desire to celebrate the excellence of his native territory. “I wanted to spotlight the excellence of the Veneto [region] and our heritage, but linking that with the fashion calendar, art fairs.…It was originally born as a project to celebrate our roots,” he says. “My idea was to create something new, meeting the demand of the luxury [market].”
First and foremost, Giovanni wanted to challenge high winemaking’s marketing. He refused to accept the stereotype of the powerful man flanked by a pretty girl while sipping expensive wine that is so popular, he says, in wine ad campaigns.
Rather he sought to instill an arty vibe in Katkoot’s offering by designing bottles as heirlooms, art pieces, brutalist knickknacks or even perhaps jewelry pieces.
Every bottle comes with a sculptural base holder, each with its own slight variation and organic, DIY feel, crafted from metals including bronze, copper and aluminum. They were originally hand-manufactured by a small blacksmith atelier in Morocco before production was moved to Italy’s Veneto region, reiterating Katkoot’s link with the founders’ native region.
“Textures are really important for me; when you hold a [Katkoot] bottle you can feel that there is weight and substance,” Giovanni explains. “I’ve always been passionate about brutalist and minimalist art. My first inspiration [for the base] was primitive jewelry, simple and clean forms speaking of a new conception of luxury.
“A lot of people are focused on the bottle’s label and its graphic signs,” Giovanni explains. “My aesthetic idea was to create something [else] that was recognizable for our brand….Once the wine experience has ended, our bottles remain alive.
“There is a personal and domestic dimension to the base being removed and used as a pocket emptier, an ashtray,” he adds. As a result, the base can be found scattered in the houses of many high-profile fans of Katkoot, from Lenny Kravitzto Lamy.
As Giovanni focused his artistic touch on the bottle’s design, Francesco was committed to translating excellence in the winemaking process, forging links with Veneto producers.
“Our vision in winemaking is different and new,” Francesco contends. “We decided to work with small producers…the cornerstone of the project is collaboration and we didn’t want to change the way production is done here.”
“In luxury winemaking, heritage vineyards are a focal point, but we, instead, wanted to anchor our project on the collaboration with small producers,” echoes Giovanni. “A lot of our values are mirrored in the micro companies we develop our excellence with.”
The first wine to get the Katkoot treatment, in 2018, was Veneto’s jewel in the crown, the sparkling Prosecco Asolo Superiore DOCG Brut white wine from grapes grown at 1,312 feet above sea level. It comes in a bronze base bottle. It was followed by the red wine Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG in 2020 in a copper base bottle; the sparkling Rosè Metodo Classico Riserva wine in 2021 in an aluminum base bottle, and the Amarone della Valpolicella Riserva 2005 DOC in 2023, its bottle featuring an oxidized copper base.
Targeted at the international jet set, the latest addition brings together the cofounders’ two souls and respective hometowns — their native Veneto region and Paris where Giovanni has lived for more than a decade. Last January Katkoot introduced its first Champagne, a Dosage-Zero Premier Cru wine produced in France’s Chigny-les-Roses region, which Francesco bills as “the cherry on top.”
In addition to attracting high-profile individuals and celebrities, the Katkoot brothers have managed to forge ties with art institutions and brands, spanning from the Venice Biennale, London’s Barbican Centre and Paris’ Palais de Tokyo to Giorgio Armani, Rick Owens and Saint Laurent, among others.
Collaboration is ingrained in the wine brand’s ethos, Giovanni explains. “We’re currently working with a lot of brands and artists to create a collaborative community and it’s important to respect that community, of chefs, artists, musicians, DJs,” he adds.
While several upcoming high-profile linkups are being kept under wraps, the brand has partnered with Soho House in Berlin and Mykonos, for example, organizing a culinary masterclass with Congolese chef Laure Assembé, known as Sita, in the latter location in 2022, and also developed a project with Iceland-based outerwear brand 66 North.
Marking 66 North’s debut in London with a flagship store in 2022, Katkoot produced a specially designed bottle for its Amarone della Valpolicella as well as a matching bag. Next up is an apparel capsule collection codesigned by the Katkoot brothers with the brand’s creative director Kei Toyoshima, launching early next year.
The brothers have simultaneously sown the seeds for distribution, inking deals with Selfridges and Galeries Lafayette, as well as restaurants and hotels including the Venice Venice Hotel in Venice, Italy, Milan’s restaurant House of Ronin, and the Beefbar network, among others.
Francesco says that Italy, France as well as the U.K., Lithuania and Latvia are among the strongest markets for Katkoot, in addition to South Korea. The Bassan brothers are developing a Katkoot e-commerce site to jumpstart the direct-to-consumer channel and are looking to expand into Japan and Southeast Asia.
“Selecting our distributing partners is crucial, because this project needs to be understood,” Francesco says.
