I recently spent a week in Napa Valley doing wine tasting and taking photos that might make good oil paintings. I recently posted my first painting from that trip on the Sketchbook social community here on Hive. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.
@dabeckster/oil-painting-rutherford-rows
The first three days we stayed in downtown Napa at the Westin. It’s a beautiful hotel right on the Napa River and walking distance to downtown’s shopping, tasting rooms, and restaurants. We took walks along the river a couple of times a day.
The wineries are each unique in both architecture and gardens. We visited Darioush, Nickel and Nickel, Ehlers, Trefethen, St. Supery, and several others over the six days we were there. To be honest, four days in Napa is plenty. Tasting wine several times a day for that many days can be exhausting, but I’m not complaining. Four days would have been plenty, but it is important to pace yourself. A couple of tastings a day leaves you with enough energy to enjoy dinner each evening and not fall asleep by seven. But I’m getting older, so my drinking stamina isn’t what it used to be.
After three days at the Westin, we moved over the mountain to the town of Sonoma and stayed at the Renaissance Resort and Spa. The town square in Sonoma is very quaint and has great galleries, restaurants, and tasting rooms. Here’s a view of the hotel from the pool area.
When we walked to the town square, I found this little walkway leading back to a small inn. I thought it made an interesting composition.
Here are a few of my favorite photos photos from our visits to the wineries.
Darioush is all about opulence with its Persian architecture and its great Bordeaux blend wines.
We did an evening tasting at Trefethen Winery and had the place to ourselves.
We had our tasting at the winery owners house on the back patio. They live elsewhere now so they use the house for special events and food and wine experiences. This view off the front porch of the house was pretty cool.
Nickel and Nickel specializes in single vineyard Cabernets and the grounds have beautiful gardens and interesting structures.
While at Nickel and Nickel we saw the Napa Valley Wine Train pass by.
From Nickel and Nickel, you get a great view of Opus One Winery with the mountains in the distance. It is a really interesting building sitting like a buried bunker into the hill.
Ehlers Winery is a nonprofit foundation where all profits go to research on heart disease. You may be able to see the heart in the large E on the back of the tasting room. They had great gardens as well as great wines. I really like the colors in this photo so don’t be surprised if you see a painting of it posted at some point.
Hope you enjoyed my tour. If you like wine, visiting Napa Valley should be on your bucket list!
