Art Russe Wine-and-Chess Case as FIDE Candidates Tournament Super Prize
The event resumed in Yekaterinburg.
The FIDE Candidates Tournament, suspended a year ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resumes today in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Eight strongest grandmasters of the planet will continue the battle for the opportunity to challenge the reigning champion, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, and win the world chess crown.
By tradition, the winner of the tournament will receive an additional reward: at the initiative of the Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs winery, an Art Russe Saint-Emilion Grand Cru wine-and-chess case will become a super prize for the winning candidate. Wine from the Art Russe collection is a top wine produced in the famous wine region of Bordeaux. Six bottles of unique Saint-Emilion wine with paintings by Russian artists on the labels, contained in a special-edition case with a set of chess pieces and a chessboard lid, will be presented to the winner of the Candidates Tournament by the chateau Director Laurent Prosperi. The unique wine-and-chess gift case was developed by the chateau team in 2014 in tribute to the ancient intellectual game.
In 2018, the winner of the Candidates Tournament in Berlin, American Fabiano Caruana, won the super prize from Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs. In February 2021, the GRENKE Bank team was awarded the wine-and-chess case following the team’s win in the FIDE Corporate Chess Championship attended by 288 companies from 78 countries, representing leading sectors of the global economy.
One of the most important events in the world chess calendar, the FIDE Candidates Tournament is held biannually. In March 2020, for the first time in chess history, the competition was cut short after seven rounds. The leaders after the first half are Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) and Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), who scored 4.5 points each. Fabiano Caruana (USA), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Wang Hao (China), and Alexander Grischuk (Russia) have one point less. Ding Liren (China) and Kirill Alekseenko (Russia) scored 2.5 points each. The suspended tournament will resume from those positions in the tournament table. The tournament results will be announced on April 28, 2021.
Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs is a winery in the Bordeaux region. The Chateau released its first wine-and-chess case in 2014. The chateau winemaker Louis Mitjaville, a descendant from a famous family of Bordeaux winemakers, is one of the world's leading experts on Merlot. The chateau produces a single wine per year. The bottle labels are decorated with paintings by Russian artists. Every year a collection of 12 paintings plus one out-of-series artwork for the magnum (1.5 l) is published. All artworks reproduced on the chateau wine labels are part of the collection of the Art Russe Foundation. The right of use is granted to Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs under a cooperation agreement with the Foundation.
