WINE MAY BE ETERNAL, and your affection for certain labels and chardonnay may be everlasting, and the knowledge that vines will always produce grapes that will always produce sensational libations may encompass all of time, in your book, but here is a not-so-hard truth: Wineries can change. Or evolve, or add new things, or change up an outdoor area, or include events that hadn't been on the calendar before, or however you want to describe a vineyard's freshening-up process. This in no way detracts from wine's inherent sense of eternity, for wine and eternity seem like very old friends, indeed. Rather, it tells longtime fans, and curious newcomers, that a winery is always looking to the future, and is eager to remain on the front edge, even while keep to its eternal and essential work of creating tip-top sips.
CLOS PEGASE, a legendary grape-growing, elixir-making staple of the Calistoga wine-making scene, has recently done some sprucing, some adding, some enhancing, and here's the happy result: A new tasting room, a new tour experience, and that sublime Heritage Garden, which flowers, literally, with rare leafy wonders. The brand-new tasting room, which may be found in one of the property's original porticos (a portico designed by Michael Graves, the accoladed architect behind Clos Pegase), has made its debut ahead of the busy spring-into-summer-into-fall visiting season, while the recently introduced Connoisseur Cave Tour & Tasting visits both the "expansive caves" of the 35-year-old property, as well as the Cave Theater. As for being...
OUT UNDER THE SUN, which is one of the true pleasures of daytripping through Napa Valley? There's the quite new, undeniably lovely Heritage Garden, a plant-lush spot full of drought-resistant shrubs and succulents. As for those photographable wine palms dotting the spread? There are 19 in all, if you spend time counting them up, but if not, just linger and enjoy their beauty. And time, which has a rather tight-knit relationship with eternity, seems more precious and full of possibility when spent at a pretty winery like Clos Pegase. So why not spend a little bit of eternity tasting, touring, and admiring those rare wine palms during your next adventure in the north N.V.? Eternity, as they say, is eternal.
