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Clos Pegase Winery
Rating Details »
Categories: Venues & Event Spaces, Wineries [Edit]
1060 Dunaweal LnCalistoga, CA 94515
(707) 942-4981
- Hours:
Mon-Sun. 10:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
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"So, I've been to this winery twice, and I have to say it's by far my favorite. Their wines are great, especially the Zins. The staff is…" read more »
37 reviews for Clos Pegase Winery
I give it 3 stars for their cab, and the port.
but I have to say the man here (vince?) RUDE....
ruined it for me and made it awkward.
I admit we did go in the wrong entrance. we didn't pay for a tour and had to walk past it, we didn't want to linger because A. No time B. tour half way done.
as we are walking away rude man exclaims in front of everyone in a harsh tone "taking the tour yourself are you"
we just said we got lost, looking for the tasting room.
but after our tasting we wanted to look in the art room and rude man comes to us "you need to get out of here it is reserved for a party"
we hit our first napa snobbery. let me tell you what to do with that stick once you pull it out, eh
I do have to add a note: I appreciated our pourer who gave us a free dessert pour for Bill and I's 5th anniversary. that was nice.
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$10 for 4 tastings.
Honestly at this point in the trip, I didn't remember much else. The wine was not bad but I don't remember anything stand out about it either.
The service was great though.
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These guys have a great "VALUE" cab. in the $25-$35 range, you just can't go wrong.
A bit off the beaten path, not on the map of "open to public wineries" and only discovered by my group because we turned the wrong way in driving at the speed of light away from Sterling (great spot for taking our tourist friend who'd never been, but $20 for wine tasting?!?!?!!?!?!).
Back to Clos Pegase. This place is a bit neurotic in terms of architecture and it's insanely hard to navigate to the tasting room (all the way in the back), but as the staff explained, the own purposefully designed his winery around his amazing art collection.
And amazing it is. Bacon. Degas. Some pretty unique paintings and loads of sculptures/statues all with an underlying humanistic theme. Once you figure out what's going on with this winery, it's worth coming.
The wine was decent and the prices a steal in Napa. Average bottle, including some big reds runs about $38 and that's without the wine club membership. The wines were decent, but not on the top of my list of things I'd like to go home with. We liked the Sauvignon Blanc and the Cabernet Franc the best. The Pinot Noir was not quite up to par - but I lived in Santa Barbara and my haven of pinots cannot be beat. Sorry.
They get an extra star because they sold purses that hold a bottle of wine and bottle opener! They looked super cute...very unique offering of visuals and nick-nacks make coming here once a twice a must if you're into randomness.
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Back when the economy was still okay, my company took us on a retreat to Silverado. On the best day of the trip, we all boarded a bus headed for Clos Pegase Winery. The bus tour guide got us all revved up for the winery on the way...
Once, we arrived, we had to contain ourselves for a bit as we met in a Clos Pegase conference room for a couple hours before the real fun began. The highlights of the meeting were the special toffee and knowing we would be wine tasting soon.
At the conclusion of our meeting, we headed into the caves for some wine tasting. The wine was delicious and the owner was incredibly supportive of our non-profit. After the tastings, we headed into the cave dining room for a delicious dinner. We all (especially the younger ones of us!) continued to get tipsy as the meal progressed. The food was great too!
Fun times and delicious wine!
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I love this place.
The wine is excellent, the grounds and artwork are beautiful, and you gotta love the giant thumb.
The most amazing thing about this place, as with most of the best wineries in Napa are the people. Britt the Director of Events is a pure firecracker. He helps put on some of the most memorable parties I have ever had the pleasure of attending.
They have a wine cave that is an amazing venue for a party or special dinner for a large group of people.
I can not wait for my next event and my next tour of this great place.
The wine here isn't bad at all, but MAN is this place a goddamn eyesore. It's like the city of Las Vegas went on a bender and vomited all over an open patch of land, and seconds later there was the Clos Pegase facility.
The people who work here are very cool, hence the 2 stars, but man oh man, the one Francis Bacon painting doesn't make up for the square mile of other crap you'd likely find in some nouveau riche marbled mcmansion in Glendale. Yuck.
Their entry-level supermarket wines are good, so buy them at the supermarket where you don't pay the tourist mark-up. The higher-tiered wines are a joke and laughably expensive. Drive by slowly to witness the horror, but that's about as close as you're going to want to get...
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Read a wine review about their red wines and sculpture garden and decided to visit. Fun eccentric artworks on the vineyard premise with lots of unique sculptures in the garden, and the cave tour a whole lot of fun. Their cave theatre was amazing, and outdoors they have an area for picnics where you can bring your own food and purchase and sip on their wine.
We missed their normal scheduled tour slots, but the staff was very nice and showed us a quick tour. I tried their 4 wine tasting, and while their wine was a bit acidic for my taste, I would still definitely be back, next time prepared with cheese and a picnic!
One of the BEST wineries in NAPA! Hands down!
we miss Jason though....
Go here even if you don't like wine. The art collection makes it worth it.
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The two stars are for the experience, not the wine. (The wine i've been a fan of since '96) The last time I took a tour here the tour director was full of information, humor, and made the experience a memorable one. This time it was a new TD (her third tour) and it just didn't flow. (I get that everyone is new at some point but the weekends are busy and I'd think the winery would have their "A" game on.) That isn't the worst part. My family and I get done with the tour and head to the tasting bar for some wine. We encounter a man that badgers our TD about her tour not being fabulous. (She could find the light switch in one of the caves on the tour and she shared that with him. He wouldn't stop making fun of her lack of knowledge and my family and I were embarrassed for her.) He then took over the wine pouring for us and when asked about a 100% Zin like they use to make he tells me that they have never made a 100% Zin. When I tell him that I have such a wine he states, "You are wrong." So I've now emailed the owner of the winery, with links to the Zin wine reviews the joker tells me the winery has never made. I'm waiting for a response. Will update.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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1/19/2009
Joined the Pegase Circle wine club after my first visit in 1998. I've been a member ever since.… Read more »
I love the review of this place by by Joseph W.
My visual take on the buildings here: They look like the cheaply built, ultramodern tacky resort hotels in Cabo San Lucas Baja Mexico. But those hotels are being better maintained and are cleaner than Clos Pegase. I saw chewing gum wads stuck to the pavement here, and the entire building needs to be re-painted - it's dingy looking.
The wines are okay. I actually prefer the lower priced wines than the overly expensive reserve bottles. The bargain bottles are fruit fresher, less tannic, more enjoyable.
The exclusively modern sculpture & paintings on display are "interesting", but not SFMOMA or Guggenheim level quality. Even if you're an avid art patron you are not going to have an "Ah - Ha" moment here.
Take Clos Pegase for what it is, a mildly amusing 20 minute stop on your relentless Napa Valley wine tour.
Visited the place for the eclectic statues on the property.
Nothing stands out more than that big ass "Uma Thurman-Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" thumb!
Really 3 and a half stars; I think the wines have declined the past few years. The building, the art, sculpture, and the grounds deserve 5 stars. A perfect place for a picnic or for kids, yet seldom have I seen
any here. The tour is enjoyable and interesting, even for kids, but you will hear more about the art than the wine.
The tasting room atmosphere has changed over the years; i feel it is a bit stuffy and uptight. It is not very welcoming nor friendly. Yet I
return to retry the wines.
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Girls wine weekend with 9 of us in a limo. People were scared, very scared, and with good reason!
Clos Pegase folks were totally cool about us piling into their tasting room. A self-guided cave tour and pourers with cute Boston accents. That is what I remember the most. The wines we tried were the following (I did have the wherewithal to at least take some notes, give me that credit!):
2006 Mitsuko's Vineyard Chardonnay: very good oak flavor
2006 Mitsuko's Vineyard Pino Noir: not my favorite but drinkable
2004 Mitsuko's Vineyard Merlot: good for a Merlot
2004 Hommage Cabernet Savignon: YUM!
2004 Home Ranch Reserve Port: also YUM!
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None of the wines here really wowed me but their cabs were by far the best of what I was offered. However, Clos Pegase does make for an interesting stop in that the property is covered by bizarre sculptures. I particularly like the giant thumb!!
They also gave me coupons for free tastings at August Briggs, Freemark Abbey & Cuvaison which was really cool of them.
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Clos Pegase is like a diamond in the ruff! The grounds are beautiful and the artwork and sculptures are amazing. Where else can you take a photo with a 6' thumb? I have to say - I was a bit disappointed with my second trip to the winery. I had raved so much about Clos Pegase that my family wanted to include it on our trip to Napa. We took the tour which always gives you great info about the art and the construction of the winery (built by Michael Graves!), unfortunately our tour guide had only given a few tours so she was a bit nervous and not as animated and enthusiastic as the previous tour guide. Fair play to her! And one of the highlights of the tour was getting to see the theater that they have in the caves, unfortunately our tour guide couldn't find the light switch - so no go on that one! Off to the tasting which was very good (the wine that is!), but not the obnoxious and pompous banter of one of the hospitality people. Our tour guide ended up pouring for us and she was very knowledgeable about the wine. Her counterpart proceeded to make fun of her during our tasting -- very unprofessional! She didn't seem to be phased by it but it was annoying to us and I thought very unbecoming for the winery. Anyway, enough of that, overall Clos Pegase is a very interesting winery to throw into the mix when visiting Napa. Their wine is remarkably inexpensive for the caliber especially their cab franc and cabernet sauvignon.
Q: What's the difference between being romantic and being kinky?
A: Being romantic means you're using a feather. Being kinky means you use the whole chicken.
Ahh, the lovely little kernels of wisdom dispensed at Clos Pegase by the ever effervescent Jason. Although he said he dabbled in stage production and midget porn, he seems to moonlight as a server in the tasting room at CP.
He was hilarious and more than willing to help us out, even though we showed up 10 minutes before the winery closed. He made the experience for us amusing, which was a feat in and of itself, considering we had been drinking for four hours and were winding down. The other servers were also kind of bouncing off him, and I appreciate the irreverence with which they approached their jobs. So many people in wineries are uptight and stuffy- it was refreshing to see someone with such a personality.
$10 got us 4 tastings - sauvignon blanc, zinfandel, merlot, and a reserve issue of cabernet sauvignon. It would have been nice to have a sweet wine included in the series, but Jason hooked us up with a complimentary tasting of their latest rose wine.
The winery itself is beautiful and unique, and is a wonderful balance to the classic Sterling across the road. It's also much less crowded than the typical and popular winery, but in a lovely space.
The wine wasn't anything stupendous, but honestly, with a staff like the one we saw today, you can't go wrong:
Jason: Are you really that tall or are you wearing stilts?
Me: Yeah, I'm really this tall.
Jason: Can I climb you?
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When friends ask me to recommend places to visit in the Napa Valley, I always encourage them to check out Clo Pegase. Being originally from the area, I have been to many wineries there but, I have never been to one that mixes modern art with winemaking. I knew the minute I passed the gigantic sculpture of a thumb on my way to the tasting room that I was in for something different. The Chardonnay is dry, just as I like it! The grounds are interesting and beautiful --- there's a lot more than just a thumb sticking out of the vineyards to look at --- although that's quite a sight in itself.
Check it out at:
http://www.clospegase....
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Clos Pegase doesn't have the best wine in the valley, not by a vintner's mile, but that modern Greek temple is quite a sight. And the various art pieces around the grounds are worth a perusal...especially that giant thumb (see the photo). The Italianate gardens are also well tended. A free tour is offered twice a day, 11AM and 2PM, and the guide goes not only through the vats and barrels but also the dimly lit caves where private parties are often held.
The reserve wines are definitely worth a taste in the visitor center, which is open between 10:30PM and 5PM. In fact, it's one of the prettier tasting rooms you'll see on your tour of the valley, and the labels on the bottles usually incorporate original art. The place is never terribly crowded probably because the tourists are waiting in line for the $20 tramway ride at Sterling Vineyards up the road. That's fine, as Clos Pegase is better enjoyed in relative solitude if you can.
I like to start out a winery tour at Clos Pegase since it's probably the northernmost, large-scale winery in the valley. That way, you can work your way down Highway 128 until you start swerving off the road. I usually make it to Domaine Chandon in Yountville intact, as champagne makes a fitting end to my journey.
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Clos Pegase is a very artsy winery, with a lot of Greek influence and modern sculptors. There is a huge sculpture of a thumb, complete with a fingerprint out front. Clos Pegase is very picturesque, and unique. Inside the premises, is a small store, where you can buy wine cases, shirts, hats jackets and the like. They even have a resident artist, which was something I havent come across at a winery yet before. His name was Jim, and he is a very good painter I must say. We opted for a tour through the processes. We had a one hour tour through the shipping area, bottling, and the caves where they store fermenting wine in barrels. The caves were cool, and dark with a savory aroma of merlot permeating the air. Inside the cave were a few notable busts and sculptures, but the 17th century Bacchus Denied was what stood out most to me. There were many tributes to Bacchus throughout the location. Compared to other wineries I have been to, this place was somewhat obscure, but pleasant and interesting due to the eccentric style.
Swallow their wine, see their art!
The place sticks out like a sore thumb. Right up my alley! Their addoration to art and a non-conformist color scheme matched with its architectural elements is respectable. I dig.
CP is at the end of the stretch of the Napa Valley Tourist corridor but it's certainly worth a stop. This was our last stop of our trip and we were blown away by the quality-for-price the wine is.
Maggie, our charming wine rep, threw a large palate of different styles of wines, and we came out with armfuls of Merlot and Vin Gris. We even joined the quarterly club so we could slowly delve into their other selections.
They do have a tiny bit of a suckage factor by not comp'ing the $10 tasting fees into their bottle sales. Oh well, I've blown $20 in much worse ways than this.
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I went to Clos Pegase back in February. They have great wine and they do have sculptures. I actually had the opportunity to walk through their cellars, and see the rooms where they host parties; I have a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from there and have been saving it for a special occassion. The only thing I don't like is that rather than a sculpture garden, where the landscape compliments the sculptures, it looks as if they just plopped some of the weirdest, tackiest, most uninteresting figures all over the grounds. They are located in the most odd places, my friends and I could not stop talking about how bad they were the whole time we were there.
They get a 4 because all I really care about is the wine being good - and that it is.
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This winery was highly recommended so I thought it would be a great place to take my family.
The tasting was pretty standard, although I was highly amused by the huge thumb on the walk up and the $15million painting of a Gorilla head inside the tasting room.
The guy pouring my wine was chatty and friendly, however some of the other guests were a tad 'stick up the ass-ish.' It's just wine people, get over yourself.
The wine was tasty, but I wasn't hugely impressed - this is a great place if your up near Calistoga but I wouldn't make the trek from Sonoma on Trinity Road just to head here.
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I must agree I wasn't in love with the majority of the wines. They do have some nice, earthy wines. Their tasting was mostly reds, which are not my forte. The bottles are priced mid range for Napa. Other than that the grounds are interesting and the staff is friendly.
Tasting is $10 and is not comped if you join the wine club...just FYI
Has a bit of a modernist personality going for it and the cave room is pretty cool. But, the 40 minute tour was unnecessarily long.
Come here if you're into weird things.
Come here if you're just weird.
Weird is what you'll think when you say, what's with this art deco all over the property.
Come here to see a thumb.... a thumb sticking out of the ground.
Eh, just come and check it out for yourself.
Come for the cave tour, it's "cool".
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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10/10/2007
Worth the trip for the photo-op!
Come here if you're into weird things.
Come here if you're just… Read more »
[8/3/07]
Wines:
Overall, the wines were ok+. I liked their Cabernet Franc, and the Pinot Gris Rose was pleasant. Their Cabernet Sauvignon was also nice, but definitely not worth the $80.
Experience:
Beautiful winery! Nicely laid out, accented with impressive sculptures and flowing architecture.
Festive grounds that make it a great location to take out of town visitors, but not a destination winery for me for the wine alone.
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Very interesting grounds and 4 tables or so outside with a fountain where you could picnic while wine tasting. $10 for 4 wines which after a wkend of wine tasting seems, well..... not as generous, but we got an extra pour of the Port which was nice. It was a refreshing change having just come down the tram from Sterling.
First of all, the landscaping is quite unique here. The vineyards are very visible as you walk into the tasting room. The grapes were just about to be harvested as they have started a week earlier this year because of the heat. They were not pouring a great variety of wines (4 total) of which one was a sauvignon blanc and two merlots. We skipped the pouring and just took pictures of the winery.
Clos Pegase is a place you have to checkout, once. They have some really interesting artwork and their wine is pretty good however, I am not a fan of their tasting room. Very crowded and the staff is not really friendly or helpful. Best bet here, is to buy a bottle and go outside and enjoy the grounds.
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To each his own but I loved this place. Very, very artsy which makes for a fantastic trip for those of us who enjoy atmosphere.
After our tasting we got to try their Late Harvest 2006 Chardonnay, and holy cow was it good! We bought a bottle and after seeing how much my wife enjoyed it, I wound up joining their wine club.
Most of us go to Napa to have fun and experience the valley, and this is a great place to do it. I'll save the detailed wine analysis to those who think they know what they are talking about, but we loved it.
I didn't try their wines, but they have some interesting artwork at their winery. check it out.
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This is an interesting winery with all their sculptures throughout the estate. There is a fee for the tasting and the service was a bit unattentive. It just seemed like an odd place. Although they mentioned there are caves on the estate and during halloween this year, they plan to have a party and decorate them. I may just have to co0me back and see how that is. The wine was good, esp the port.
Overpriced, overpriced, overpriced! Obviously you're paying through the a$$ so that the winemaker can populate the grounds of the winery with pieces of abstract art. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against modern art (and he has some beautiful pieces here) but I instinctively distrust a winery that spends so much time on it's beauty. It's like a person who spends so much time on the outward appearance and not enough on the insides. The wines are decent but not at the price range they offer them up for.
Driving up, I decided this has to be the oddest-looking winery I've ever visited. It's just kind of there, looking out of place. Once you get inside to the garden area it's really pretty, and the sculptures are fun (loved the thumb!). I wasn't terribly impressed with the wines, but the pourers were friendly enough. I'd give four stars except that they don't comp the tasting fee when you buy a bottle! That's totally lame.
