{"id":1732,"date":"2021-01-28T16:51:17","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T16:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2021-01-28T19:57:47","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:57:47","slug":"the-hess-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1732","title":{"rendered":"The Hess Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hess Collection winery (https:\/\/www.hesscollection.com\/<\/a>) is a little out of the way, up on Mt. Veeder.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth the trip, for two reasons.\u00a0 The obvious one is to taste their wines.\u00a0 The other is to see their art.<\/p>\n

The winery was founded by one of the Napa Valley pioneers, by Donald Hess of Switzerland back in the 1980s.\u00a0 He had already made a fortune in Swiss sparkling water and had started collecting art.\u00a0 So when he opened a winery in California he also used the location to house his paintings and sculptures.\u00a0 And he continued to collect more widely.\u00a0 For a visitor to Napa Valley, a trip the The Hess Collection is both an aesthetic and gustatory experience.<\/p>\n

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The Hess Collection winery.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

The art gallery adjoins the tasting room.\u00a0 There are other wineries, especially in Napa Valley, that also exhibit fine art<\/a>.\u00a0 But The Hess Collection has a museum<\/em> of modern art with artists and pieces of the highest quality.\u00a0 Many artists are quite well-known: Francis Bacon, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella to name a few.\u00a0 All the works are from Donald Hess\u2019 personal collection.\u00a0 (The Hess Collection, get it?)<\/p>\n

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Photograph courtesy of Incollect.<\/em><\/p>\n

As you enter the gallery, the first painting you see is an enormous portrait entitled Johanna II by Franz Gertsch, a Swiss artist.\u00a0 It is photorealistic and is the most widely featured artwork in publicity for the museum.\u00a0 Perhaps that\u2019s to entice visitors who are not as familiar with abstract art, which makes up the majority of the paintings and drawings on display.<\/p>\n

There is much sculpture shown as well.\u00a0 Some are easy to relate to, such as the full length male nudes by Deryck Healy, a South African artist previously unknown to us.\u00a0 And others, such as the enormous oak log by Polish artist Magdalena Abakonowicz\u2026well, you just have to see it.<\/p>\n

Oh, yes, you can taste wines, too.\u00a0 At one point, there were two quality levels available for tasting, Hess Select and The Hess Collection.\u00a0 The former was (and is) intended for the mass market.\u00a0 These wines are still available at retail but not at the winery.<\/p>\n

The strength \u2013 and in some ways, the weakness \u2013 of the wines you can taste there is the enormous variety of wines they make.\u00a0 Their top wines, in the Icon series (a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay), are quite refined and really only for connoisseurs.\u00a0 It is rare that these will be available for tasting.\u00a0 Those bottled under The Hess Collection label are the ones you might see in a quality wine shop and they lean towards Cabs.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a Lions Head series with the same mix of grapes.\u00a0 Then there are the wines they source from nearby and distant vineyards, which they call Small Block wines; these are only available at the winery.<\/p>\n

Overall, you might not like everything in the Hess Collection museum or the winery, but that\u2019s all right.\u00a0 We don\u2019t like everything in the Louvre, either.\u00a0 But there is much to admire, and an hour or so spent at this museum is as much a part of the Napa Valley experience as their wines.<\/p>\n

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The Hess Collection winery (https:\/\/www.hesscollection.com\/) is a little out of the way, up on Mt. Veeder.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth the trip, for two reasons.\u00a0 The obvious one is to taste their wines.\u00a0 The other is to see their art. The winery was founded by one of the Napa Valley pioneers, by Donald Hess of Switzerland back … Continue reading The Hess Collection<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1764,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}