Thursday, August 13, 2009

Darioush Winery -touring the Napa Valley

Last weekend my friend and I visited the Napa Valley.
One of the things that we like to do is to look at interesting architecture and landscape architecture when on our day trips and the Darioush Winery is definitely interesting.

Their website : http://www.darioush.com/

The story of the winery is just as impressive as the architecture.
Darioush Khaledi spent his youth growing up in Iran , in the wine region known for its Shiraz wines. He immigrated to the US in the late 1970’s and followed his dream of creating beautiful full body wines in a beautiful winery.

This is the entry view of the winery : Pretty impressive. That's my friend in his 57 MG, our ride for that day.

From Napa Valley Day Trip


Darioush’s building evokes Persepolis, the illustrious capital of ancient Persia.

From Napa Valley Day Trip


There are two wings on either side of the entry staircase with a lovely lily fountain on either side.
From Napa Valley Day Trip


The body of the building is clothed in travertine stone from Persepolis and exported to Turkey before making its way to Napa Valley. The intricate details of the fascia was hand carved and cast in special concrete mixture that evokes the sandstone from the desert.
From Napa Valley Day Trip


Bottom column detail
From Napa Valley Day Trip


I didn’t take any photos inside on this trip. It was almost closing time and the tasting room was packed with people that it was impossible to capture the interior details.

3 comments:

danger garden said...

Beautiful! How was the wine?

Susan aka Miss R said...

I'm not sure if I like this or not. Usually I'm all for exuberance. One thing's for certain it's way, way over the top. For some reason I'm reminded of an LA scandal in the late 70s when the new owner of a well know and highly visible Beverly Hills home painted all of the street side human statues on the curtain wall realistically--including the hairy details...

Deviant Deziner, aka Michelle said...

I've never tasted the wine and I've visited the wine tasting room several times.
They ask 25$ for a tasting. Too spendy for me.

The first time I saw this building I said to myself " Mockatechture".
But upon close investigation all of the construction details were finely hand crafted.
That's what ultimately did it for me ; the high quality of craftsmanship.

Napa Valley is like an architectural petting zoo.
Everything is represented there.
Some of it good, some of it not so good. Some is really really bad and others are over the top but the quality of craftsmanship was so fine that you had to give it a nod of appreciation.

Another over the top winery, just up the street is Quixote Winery. - www.quixotewinery.
It is dream like.... well if you dreamed like Antonio Gaudi anyways.

You need a special appointment to view the grounds , the winery and the buildings.
I hope to go for a visit soon.
It is surreal.