Joelma Santanita

Founding partner of the Santanita Winery, producer of wine in the historic Portuguese region Alentejo, Joelma is a professional sommelier, trained at the Italian Sommelier Association and the Brazilian Sommelier Association. However, Joelma's first passion was art, in particular painting, which she practiced almost intuitively since she was a child, perfecting herself during her adolescence until she received her first assignment for the realization of the mural of the Chapeuzinho Vermelho school in Juazeir do Norte, his hometown. During this period he also became interested in other art forms, following a course in screen printing.
When she turned twenty, Joelma moved to São Paulo in Brazil, having to close her dream of entering the School of Fine Arts in a drawer and managing to reopen it only 25 years later. In fact, the passion for the production of wine, crowned by success in her career as an entrepreneur, has awakened her dream as a painter, creating a very strong union between art and wine, because wine is art…it is life….
It was precisely then that she decided to make her dream come true, following the course of the renowned Portuguese artist Etelvina Santos in 2018. Here she learned, developed and perfected various techniques, remaining enchanted by that of watercolor, in which her creativity fully identified. As Fernando Pessoa said "To be great, be whole, be all in everything" and finding herself in watercolor, she composes works that have aroused much interest and have been published on the covers of O Escanção, a renowned magazine in the world of wine. Here the artist, in addition to her skills as a well-known sommelier, shows her talent as a painter to the world of wine, starting from the contours of a beautiful canvas. In the meantime, his journey continues and is enriched together with other great artists. It is her artistic mentor who invites Joelma to experiment with the fusion of watercolor and wine. In his studio, with the best papers and brushes, the artist begins to develop experiments on watercolor techniques combined with wine, first with that produced by his company and then also with that coming from other countries, using vintages, styles and grapes different. The combinations and shades obtained from wine give her canvases a particular evocative charm, especially when one understands that each Joelma canvas is a hymn to life and an encouragement to always follow our dreams. His works show all the essence of the artist, innovative and daring, who through his brushes gives life to what already has life, immortalizing his grapes and his wine.