If you plan to tour California Wine Country ...
...a stopover at Chateau St Jean must be on your itinerary.
...a stopover at Chateau St Jean must be on your itinerary.
Read more about the Sonoma setting:
Showing posts with label Winery Gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winery Gardens. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Howell Mountain Hillside: O'Shaughnessy Winery
O'Shaughnessy Winery Vista: Slopes of Howell Mountain in the hills above St. Helena.
(Photos © Alice Joyce)
Jack Chandler, Landscape Architect
Spent a lively day buzzing around Napa Wine Country with Jack Chandler, looking at various projects of Jack's spanning private estates to inviting wineries.
One project we toured, O'Shaughnessy Winery in Angwin was new to me. Difficult to imagine a more beautiful site than this East Napa County landscape, with its terraces that take full advantage of the view.
An off-the-beaten path locale for wine loving cognescenti, the winery boasts a scented entry path lined in fragrant roses, befitting a tasting of their 2007 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, which proved to be delectably stimulating. A full-bodied melding of blackberry and chocolate, blueberry, black raspberry and plum notes with cinnamon and vanilla aromas that distinguish the varietal, there are still more complex flavors to tease the palate and emerge at the finish. ((A Robert Parker rating of 95 points.))
Landscape architecture by Jack Chandler.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Meet me at Cottage Gardens! Wine Country Landscape Design
Should you be in Northern California on Sunday, April 10th around 11 a.m., Cottage Gardens in Petaluma I hope you'll drop by and say hello! I'm pleased to be a part of the Springtime schedule of events taking place at this wonderful plant nursery.
Photographed at Darioush Winery
My presentation will feature my favorite destination wineries, along with aspects of landscape design, and...
I'll be giving away a limited number of complimentary wine tasting cards.
Matanzas Creek Winery Dry Stream Bed
Cottage Gardens is located at 3995 Emerald Drive, Petaluma.
Photos © Alice Joyce
Photos © Alice Joyce
On FaceBook? I'd love to connect with you.
Hope to see you at Cottage Gardens!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Rain Did Not Dampen the Delights .. DeLoach Vineyards
It may be rainy season in Northern California Wine Country, but that did not stop an international coterie of journalists, authors, bloggers & permaculture professionals from enjoying a day of garden touring, wine tasting, and a delectable locavore lunch at DeLoach Vineyards.
At De Loach the entire approach to the land, from the vineyards to the culinary and insectary gardens, is fully organic and biodynamic: Awarded CCOF certification.
Our host, Jean-Charles Boisset applies sustainable principles, biodynamic farming, and organic methods to every aspect of the Boisset estates in California, France, Italy & Québec.
On the local level, in partnership with the Redwood Empire Food Bank, 100% of the proceeds from one of the excellent wines we tasted -- DeLoach Vinthropic Chardonnay -- are donated to the Food Bank.
Winegrower Eric Pooler spearheaded our tour, and allowed an up-close and personal look at the innovative bio-reactor - one of the first in the industry - that relies on micro-organisms to purify all the water used in the winemaking process so it can be called upon for landscaping and irrigation use.
Maria Mobilia is shown behind the camera, filming the tour for
Your Garden Show.
Your Garden Show.
In-depth coverage of my day at DeLoach Vineyards ...
Biodynamic Gardens & Wine Tasting on:
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Bloom's Bodacious Borders at Kendall-Jackson Winery
A few years ago, one of my San Francisco Chronicle 'Garden Walks' columns celebrated the opening of new perennial borders in Wine Country designed by British horticulturist Adrian Bloom.
(Above: Chronicle photo - All other photos: copyright Alice Joyce)
Son of famed plantsman, Alan Bloom,and author of numerous gardening books featuring Foggy Bottom, Adrian Bloom's personal 6-acre garden in Norfolk, Bloom shared his thoughts on the Blooms of Bressingham borders at Kendall-Jackson Winery. Here: a long view of the garden on a recent summer's day, with bees abuzz, flitting among the bountiful blooms.
I'll be returning to the winery's varied landscape in future posts, to visit K-J's vineyard demonstration & culinary gardens, where visitors can relax and enjoy a picnic.
To find the borders, amble from the formal parterre garden fronting the main chateau, and continue around the side of the building. A signpost heralds the Blooms of Bressingham garden, where drifts of plants meld together in what Bloom calls "macro and micro views."
Reflecting Bloom's refined gardening style, the garden plan revolves upon artful combinations of conifers, flowering perennials, ornamental grasses and shrubs. The tall, vertical shapes of evergreen Italian cypresses draw the eye, and as Bloom shared, "give you a bit of structure... whichever way you're looking.. on either side of the pathway to take the eye through," calling attention to the surrounding plant combinations.
One of the lessons I took home: "Even small gardens must have a vista."
The Kendall-Jackson Winery chateau and formal gardens
appear upon exiting the parking area.
Back to the Bloom Borders! Plant tableaux come into focus as you walk along the curving central pathway, where groupings are linked by contrasts in foliage and flower color, texture and form: Purple-toned leaves of heucheras and phormiums; blue-violet, long-blooming Geranium 'Rozanne;' mounding Anthemis 'Susanna Mitchell;' bushy Coreopsis 'Limerock Ruby.'
Geranium blooms weave through hydrangeas; salvias and feathery silver-filigree artemisias are backed by dark Cotinus foliage and butterfly-attracting buddleias. 
A bee feasting on... Asclepias incarnata?
Flanking a bench, fragrant rosemary, lavender & Verbena bonariensis
envelop the visitor who stops here to bask in the setting.
Kendall Jackson Winery - www.kj.com
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Clamor .. Murmur .. Plash! Potpourri of Fountains
Provence, France
Still pools, cascades, clamoring waterfalls & splashing fountains.
A collection of magical water gardens photographed in Spring, Summer and Fall,
appearing on Bay Area Tendrils in 2009.
To connect to original feature, click on garden link.
Portland, Oregon
Words and photos by Alice Joyce, Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel
The theft of content and photos on the Internet is widespread.
Napa, California
Paris, France
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Harvest Season, Napa Valley - Before the Storm!
Formerly: Go Fish restaurant, St. Helena
Yesterday, the ebullient harvest season in Napa Valley reigned!
After a delicious lunch at Go Fish,
an afternoon spent photographing winery gardens beneath overcast skies.
On the drive home, the clouds forecast the threatening rain.
Après le deluge ... a drenching storm blew in overnight,
its blustery winds and rain
unabated this morning.
Let's focus on the scene on Monday:
Napa Valley restaurant gardens, featuring an abundance of edibles & ornamentals.
Mustard's Grill, one of many Napa Valley restaurants that cultivate lush kitchen gardens.
A welcoming water feature at Brix restaurant, Yountville.
Mustard's Grill - another section of the gardens, with a structure providing some shelter.
Opus One Winery colonnade....
Fuyu Persimmon
Edible blooms ... the peppery flavor of nasturtiums adds spice to a salad.
Click on link below for entree to a trove of.... California Wine Country destinations
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
What is a Weed? - Native Plants at Hess Collection Winery
What is a weed?
A Plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Hess Collection Winery and Art Museum
View looking down on the courtyard from the visitor center.
The garden features a design by acclaimed landscape architect Peter Walker, with plantings by John Greenlee, noted expert in grass ecology.
"The Hess Collection Courtyard is designed as an integral part of our mountain landscape and a commitment to care for the land we farm. Our vineyards are rimmed by meadows and redwood forests, and although our garden aesthetic is wild and natural, it is well-tended to maintain the experience of a lushly undulating alpine meadow. Native and exotic grasses and ornamentals are chosen for variation in height and seasonal interest. Volunteer plants surprise us in Spring, seedheads are allowed to dry and drop their contents in Fall. Thus, the garden is allowed to propagate itself and actively evolve.
Because the Eastern-most boundary of the naturally occurring redwoods is here in the Mayacamas Mountains, we incorporated these trees with Western sword ferns to echo the nearby woods."
Plantings encourage beneficial insects, taking in native species of common yarrow, Western columbine, bush anemone, creeping ceanothus and blue beach aster.
To add further color, Mimulus 'Pumpkin,' Purdy's Foothill penstemon, Salvia cleavlandii & S. spathacea were selected, along with yellow-eyes grass and Zauschneria californica.
On a recent summer day I made my way to Napa wine country to revisit the artfully arranged, Modernist landscape at The Hess Collection Winery.
A rectilinear pool and wisteria-draped pergola wrap around the garden's central layout of pristine decomposed gravel pathways: Their angular, dynamic pattern extends an invitation to enjoy the spirited plantings where butterflies hover and dragonflies dart overhead.
The garden holds a special place in my memory, having first encountered it while researching the Winery Gardens chapter for West Coast Gardenwalks - before the pieces fell into place for my move from Chicago to California.
(The Hess Collection garden also features in Gardenwalks in California, INSIDERS' Guide, 2005.)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Surface Tension - Andy Goldsworthy in California Wine Country
Andy Goldsworthy - Hess Museum
Surface Tension
Rock Pools ... kiln melted stones on floor
Snow Ball Drawings ... shown on walls
Surface Tension
10 x 16 ft. - On permanent display at the Hess Art Museum - Hess Collection Winery - Mount Veeder, Napa Valley. (Installation photos above: Courtesy Hess Art Museum )
Assembled by Goldsworthy in 14 hours
'Leaf stalks from a Horse Chestnut wetted and then pinned
with Hawthorn thorns.
Thorns hold entire piece to wall, ceiling and floor.
No glue or hardware.'
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Garden Hopping and Wine Tasting, Napa Valley
Conn Creek Winery - Napa Valley, California
Gardens are currently being replanted & the garden design refreshed:
New landscaping in front of building & driveway entrance designed by Jonathan Plant & Associates, St Helena.
On the way to the winery, a quick stop for a cold drink at the popular Oakville Grocery.
Under the shade of the pergola in the Garden at Conn Creek...
Outside the AVA Room
Conn Creek offers Cabernet Sauvignon tastings in their AVA Room as part of a blending seminar for small groups (no more than 10 people).
Participants take part in a guided walk-around barrel tasting, sampling wine from single-vineyard sites in 14 sub-appellations - AVAs - within the Napa Valley.
After learning about various techniques and approaches to winemaking, each guest will come away with a bottle they have blended. Creating your own unique label is part of the fun!
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