Wine and Art

There is a lot of wine to taste in Napa Valley but some wineries offer something extra, which is art.  Turnbull Winery (www.turnbullwines.com) is one of them.  They have a rotating exhibition of historic black and white photographs in the Gallery Tasting Room, that they change twice a year.  Patrick O’Dell, the winery owner, has a vast collection that he puts on display.  The current show is an Ansel Adams retrospective, with some of the most famous of his silver gelatin prints up on the walls.   Each time we’ve been to Turnbull, we were so pleased by their exhibition but did not spend enough time strolling around.   We promised ourselves that the next time we will plan more time just to visit the exhibition which is always amazing … and of course taste their wine.

The building is beautiful, in a wooden barn-style with high ceilings and “Napa style” décor. While at the bar for the tasting you’re facing a large window from which you can enjoy the view of the garden and the vineyard.  They have built a beautiful green vegetable garden and when we mentioned how interesting and pretty it was, they offered us some vegetables.  Unfortunately we could not accept because we were staying at a hotel.

You can either have your tasting in the tasting room or outside in the garden where they have chairs and tables and also a fire pit for cooler days.

The guys are extremely nice and knowledgeable.  We were invited to bring our glass of wine with us and have a tour of their barrel room where all their wines from the last harvest were resting.  It was in December; the crush was in the barrels; everything was spic & span; an employee was making the Christmas decorations; and it smelled so delicious, we just wanted to stay there!

They are not pretentious and it’s worth a stop for a tasting because they know how to make great wines.  They say that some producers make good wine in a bad year and Turnbull’s 2011’s are proof of the saying.    Turnbull is certainly on our top list for our next visit to Napa.

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