Clos Pegase Winery

Winery

The Creation of a Temple: Where Art Meets Wine

In 1983, Jan Shrem and his late beloved wife, Mitsuko, purchased a 50-acre vineyard with a rock knoll. They soon decided to create an unprecedented wine estate in Napa Valley, combining their love of art and architecture.

The Shrems hosted an architectural competition sponsored by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1984, in which 96 architects participated in the challenge to build both a “temple to wine” at the base of the Calistoga knoll and the Shrems’ home at its summit. The spectacular structures, created by contest winner Michael Graves and completed in 1987, have won international awards and generated great excitement in the worlds of wine and architecture.

In the ensuing years, Clos Pegase has been described by the press as “a place of pilgrimage” and “America’s first monument to wine as art.” It remains a destination for art and architecture lovers from around the world.