Winery Design: Quintessa’s Stones
As you travel up along the Silverado trail in Napa, through Oakville into Rutherford, you’ll see the Quintessa winery on the left hand side just before Rutherford Hill Road. It is a dramatic curve of stone that emerges from the hillside, with a square black door at its center, and a small squared off block of a building that sits upon it like a cap.
Within that stone curve is the winery equipment, and beyond that black doorway the aging caves dive into the earth. That cap atop the building is the tasting room and offices, and you reach them along a driveway that follows the curve from end to end. At the top of the curve the flat roof of the winery does double duty as the crush pad.
Sky light hatches allow access from the crush pad to the tanks and presses below. In all it is a very elegant and efficient arrangement that affords visitors to the tasting room during crush a great view of the process, with the aroma of grapes and the roar of machines.
In front of the winery are their biodynamic vineyards and more stretch over the hillsides above the winery. As you travel farther north on the Silverado Trail you see more of their vineyards on the rolling hills and valleys. The owners, the Hunneaus family were the founders of the very successful Franciscan Winery. When they sold that they built Quintessa, with the idea to produce one extraordinary Bordeaux style wine each year, in the manner of the great French wine houses. It is a very good wine.
Here is a little secret for you. They also make a small amount of very good Sauvignon Blanc that they do not pour at the winery, but you can buy it there. I found out about it because it is on the list at Michael Chiararello’s Botega restaurant in Yountville. No I didn’t buy it, but my clients raved about it, and we had to stop by and pick up a couple of cases.
One of the stories I’ve been told, and I suspect that it’s true, is that half way through constructing their beautiful wall the quarry closed. In order to match the stone they had to go all the way to Utah. That surely added a bit to the cost. It was worth the effort. The building’s design makes it stand out like a natural escarpment revealed by erosion from the Silverado River. It is a graceful accent that fits beautifully into that curve in the valley’s passage, and it is always a joy to point it out to our clients.
Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery Guides, and owners of Amicis Tours. They are authors of over twenty books on health, design, business and travel. Their iPhone Apps, The Napa Valley Wine Tour, and The Sonoma Winery Tour are a tour guides approach to these beautiful area, complete with 1000’s of photos and insights. Their articles and products can be found on the sites http://www.amicistours.com and http://www.spaceandtime.com
Wine,Tours,Napa,Sonoma,iPhone
|