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Niagara Frontier :

Niagara Frontier

Updated: Aug 28, 2011 4:53pm PST

Beringer Winery : Historic Beringer Vineyards is the oldest continuously operating winery in Napa Valley. It is also significant for the quality of its structures, stone walls and gardens that were all part of the wine country estate founded by the Beringer family in 1876. The entire winery site was designated a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

History of Beringer’s Vineyards

In 1868, Jacob Beringer left his home in Mainz, Germany, to start a new life in America. His brother, Frederick, had settled in New York five years prior, but New York life did not appeal to Jacob. Unlike his brother, Jacob enjoyed toiling in the cellars in his youth in Germany. He had heard that the warm sunny climate of California was ideal for growing wine grapes, so in 1870 he traveled by train to San Francisco, then to Napa Valley. To his delight he discovered rocky, well-drained soils similar to those in the Rhine River Valley. Best of all, he found the hills could be dug out to provide storage and aging tunnels that would maintain the constant temperature needed to produce fine wines. Jacob bought land with Frederick in 1875 and settled into producing wines comparable to the premium wines he had developed in Europe. In 1876, they founded Beringer Winery.

The tedious task of hand-chiseling the rock tunnels was completed by Chinese workers. The tunnels took several years to complete but rewarded the brothers with an extremely effective storing and aging facility that maintains a mean temperature of 58 degrees F. Today, Beringer Vineyards continues to age fine wines, including its Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, in the tunnels they built.

While the winery was being built, Jacob took up residence in a farmhouse on the property built in 1848, now referred to as the “Hudson House.” Meticulously restored and expanded, the Hudson House servers today as Beringer Vineyards’ Culinary Arts Center.

In 1883, Frederick began construction of the 17 room mansion which was to be his home—a re-creation of the family house on the Rhine River in Germany. Frederick’s “Rhine House”, is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rhine House is constructed of redwood framing, basalt rocks, Pennsylvania slate tiled roof, decorative hardwoods, and a collection of 40 panels of original stained glass – all for the total cost of $28,000.

Beringer Vineyards is the oldest continuously operating winery, producing wines which continue to reflect a single-minded dedication to the making of memorable wines.

Carriage House: Even though this building looks historic, it was built in 2001, as the Tour and Visitors Center. Thousands of guests pass each year through here to take steps back in history.
Old Stone Cellars and Caves: Recognizable for its third floor cupola, the Old Winery was started in 1876 and operational for the harvest of 1877. Guided tours of the caves are offered daily.
Rhine House: Completed in 1884 by architect Albert Schroepfer, Frederick Beringer’s residence has beautiful exterior stonework, stained glass windows and interior wood paneling—all exhibiting exceptional artistry and craftsmanship.
The Leaning Oak is well over 200 years old and stunning, this valley oak is a touchstone for the natural beauty of the site. In honor of the tree, Beringer’s introduced an exclusive line of wines called “Leaning Oak.”
Hudson House: The original structure on the property, built around 1850, served as Jacob Beringer’s home. Today the house serves as the Culinary Arts Center.

Beringer Winery

Historic Beringer Vineyards is the oldest continuously operating winer ...

Updated: Jun 10, 2011 9:37pm PST

2010 Collection of the wine photographs.Moja kolekcja zdjec win. : Serdecznie zapraszam na moj blog: Ciesz sie winem .Wine and food: www.enjoywine.blogspot.com

2010 Collection of the wine photograp...

Christopher A Jankowski

Serdecznie zapraszam na moj blog: Ciesz sie winem .Wine and food: ht ...

Updated: Apr 05, 2011 8:36pm PST

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Badia a Coltibuono, Tuscany

Updated: Mar 12, 2011 12:34pm PST

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Avignonesi, Tuscany

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Artesa Winery : Artesa Vineyards & Winery is Napa's newest, most exciting winery. Our architecturally-acclaimed facility opened as Codorniu Napa in 1991, dedicated solely to méthode champenoise sparkling wine production. But in 1997, with the arrival of a world-class winemaker and a $10 million conversion, the winery shifted focus dramatically. Artesa was born with the inaugural release of ultra-premium still wines in September 1999. Artesa (ahr TESS uh) means "craftsman" and connotes "handcrafted" in Catalan, language of Barcelona and our owner, Codorníu one of the world's largest and oldest wineries. The Codorníu Group actually consists of eight spectacular wineries whose wines are enjoyed daily in over 100 countries around the world.

Artesa Vineyards & Winery is Napa's newest, most exciting winery. Our ...

Updated: Jan 26, 2011 8:21am PST

Clos Pegase Winery : Clos Pegase. Where Vine Meets Divine! Just down the road from the town of Calistoga, there is a crossroads. It's the intersection of wine and art. And at that crossroads, you'll find something rare and remarkable: balance. You'll find serious, passionate estate-grown winemaking balanced with an open-hearted spirit of sharing and celebration. You'll find great works of art living in harmony with the earthy simplicity of the soil and the vine. You'll find a majestic temple that's somehow both awe-inspiring and welcoming. Wine that offers both true varietal intensity and food-friendly approachability. You'll find a place that captures the spirit of Bacchus: equal parts divine and joyfully down-to-earth. Look for the crossroads, and there, you'll find Clos Pegase.

About Clos Pegase

Estate of the Art
Can a winery elevate the craft of winemaking to a fine art? Of course it can. Can a winery dedicate itself as a temple to works of fine art? Why not? But can a winery that does one also achieve the other? Good question. Now, if you were to put that question to Bacchus, god of wine, mischief-maker and generally acknowledged originator of the practice of horsing around, we know just where he'd send you: straight to the horse's mouth.
And not just any horse. He'd send you to Pegasus, the winged horse of ancient myth whose hooves brushed against the earth, unleashing the sacred spring of the muses. Lucky earth. That spring gave life to grapevines, and the wine that flowed from them inspired poetry and art in all who drank it.

In that spirit, a couple of millennia later, we set out to create a place where the wellspring of wine and the muses of art could live together -- a sort of temple to wine and art. Not a museum or a sacred shrine way up in the clouds, but a haven here on earth. The kind of place we know Bacchus would approve of, where art and vines seem to spring from the same fertile soil, where smiling is encouraged, and pleasure and serendipity are all around you.

And in tribute to those fateful hoofbeats that started it all, we called that place Clos Pegase. Clos being the French word for an enclosed vineyard -- an estate winery, where every wine is made from that vineyard's own grapes. Which is what we are. And Pegase being the French word for "Pegasus." Which sounded nicer with clos.
Can wine and art come together to create an experience as lofty as Olympus and as lusty as the rascal Bacchus? We think so. Here's our story.

The Making of a Winemaker
Now, if you were to ask the wise-acre, Bacchus, "how do you make a small fortune in the wine business?" chances are he'd reply: "start with a large fortune." In the case of Clos Pegase, that large fortune came from -- of all places -- the Japanese publishing industry. In 1955, our founder, Jan Shrem, who was studying for his Master's degree at UCLA, took what he thought was going to be a little vacation in Japan. He fell in love with the place -- and with a woman named Mitsuko -- and he decided to stick around. For the next thirteen years.

To support himself, Jan began importing English-language reference and technical books to a market hungry for all things Western. He was in the right place at the right time. Building on his success, he began translating and publishing books in Japan as well, and, by the time he sold his company in 1968 to elope with Mitsuko to Europe, it had grown to some 50 offices and nearly 2,000 employees.

In 1980, after 25 years in the publishing business, Jan found himself at a crossroads. He had built a publishing empire. And, in the meantime, Mitsuko had introduced him to the mysteries and pleasures of wine -- an interest that had quickly turned into a consuming passion. He decided the time had come to listen to his "inner Bacchus" and devote his life to winemaking.

Jan enrolled in the enology program at the University of Bordeaux, where he soon became fascinated with the idea of combining ancient winemaking practices with emerging technologies. Nowhere was this combination more vital and exciting than in California, so, armed with the Napa Valley address of the dean of American winemakers, Andre Tchelistcheff, Jan headed west.

With Tchelistcheff's help, Jan eventually created a unique wine estate -- and an equally distinctive style of winemaking. He began by purchasing a 50-acre vineyard in Calistoga in 1983. Later, he would add more than 400 additional acres in the northern and southern ends of the Napa Valley.

A Temple Among the Vines
By the mid-1980s, it became clear that Jan's new wine estate would need an anchor -- a building to serve as its base of operations. But Jan was thinking bigger than a mere roof and walls. He envisioned a place designed to showcase his extensive art collection in a way that made it accessible to everyone; a focal point that could match the majesty of the rocky knoll that rises above the valley from the center of the vineyard; a place of celebration, education and pleasure; and a visible, visit-able symbol of his winemaking philosophy.

Working with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Jan sponsored an architects' competition. From a field of 96 entrants, the judges selected renowned Princeton architect, Michael Graves. He was commissioned to build a "temple to wine and art" at the base of the knoll and a home for Jan and Mitsuko at its summit, with sweeping views of the Napa Valley below. Within the knoll itself, 20,000 feet of aging caves would be excavated, including the breathtaking Cave Theater, a dramatic setting for celebrations, presentations and special events.

Construction was completed in 1987. The spectacular structures Graves created -- and the surrounding sculpture garden that includes some of the world's greatest twentieth-century works of art -- have won international awards and generated great excitement in the wine industry. The national press has been generous in its praise as well, describing Clos Pegase as "a place of pilgrimage" and "America's first monument to wine and art."
And, just as Jan had hoped, the stately symmetry of the building reflects his own winemaking ethos. "In architecture, as in our wines," he says "I believe we have achieved balance, harmony and symmetry in the classical Greek sense, avoiding the baroque concepts of high oak, high alcohol and high extract to create food-friendly wines of quiet elegance. These are the hallmarks of what has come to be known as the 'Clos Pegase style.'"

The Clos Pegase Style. It's there as you walk through the grounds. It's there in the cool stillness of the caves. You find it when you round a corner in the vineyard and come face to face with a sculpture that's both beautiful and as disarmingly irreverent as Bacchus himself. And it's there on our label, in Jan's favorite painting from his collection. There, depicted by the great 19th-Century French artist Odilon Redon, is the winged horse, Pegasus, his front hooves rearing toward the heavens, his back hooves firmly planted right here on earth.

Clos Pegase Winery

Clos Pegase. Where Vine Meets Divine! Just down the road from the town ...

Updated: Jan 23, 2011 3:01pm PST

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