My sweet Natalie and I are falling into the understanding that the essence of my business wraps around the weekends, and when I don't have a Sunday scheduled, we're off to do something fun.
As fall makes the grapes go golden around here, a journey up the gorgeous Napa Valley is well worth the exploration. This is what we did yesterday, without a plan, which is sometimes the best plan.
This Sunday, her plan was to see the valley as it graduated into the Alexander Valley, and my plan was to photograph it. Our plans were skewed as we were driving up valley by a surprise winery , as I asked her to turn around to park near the delicious rolling vines in the setting sun. While I watched the light butter up the rows of vines, she read the "Castella" sign and suggested that this might be the driveway to the Castle people were talking about. At this moment, our unplan changed. Until this point, I dismissed "the Castle" I'd been hearing about near Calistoga as a large stone building a few miles down the highway 29 road to be a wanna-be castle, but as we decided to explore what was up the driveway before I photographed, we crested this inconspicuous road, and my jaw dropped. Yep. While the dominating presence of Greystone along the road may kinda look like one, there is no mistaking the hidden Castella Di Amoroso for anything but a castle, with a moat, drawbridge, and an atmosphere that makes me want to carry around a turkey drumstick while wearing some chainmail.
A photographer's dream, fully authentic and with a simple background everywhere, this place just opened up in 2007 after 13 years of building, and is ripe for an AWESOME shoot in the near future. Here are just a few shots of mine, without much effort, doodling without subjects, with some of the fun lines within. While this place has more of a disneyland "WOW" factor in the building rather their wine, it gains my do not miss recommendation for you tourists in planning.
And finally, a teaser of what our grapes around here can look like when the big heater makes them go golden.
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