Hess Collection is Overrated.
Written: Sep 05 '09 (Updated Sep 05 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: There's art, and food.
Cons: Disorganized wintery tour, uptight atmosphere.
The Bottom Line: I'd rather relax in the countryside with a glass of wine than spend an afternoon in this stuffy museum.
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| chelledun's Full Review: The Hess Collection |
Consistently making an appearance on the "Top Ten" lists found in California guidebooks and wine magazines, Hess Collection is one of Napa Valley's better known wineries. Unfortunately, it's also one of the priciest and most pretentious. Our time here could have been better spent at one of the smaller, less-hyped, and more fun family-owned wineries which rarely make it into a guidebook or wine magazine.
Know Before You Go
Hess Collection is technically located in Napa, but for some reason it feels like it is a long way from anywhere perhaps due to its woodsy setting. Free parking is available onsite.
Winery hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The on-site contemporary art museum is open form 10:00 to 5:15 p.m. Winery tours seem to be offered less frequently at Hess Collection than at other major wineries. The free standard tour is only available at 10:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. A wine and cheese tasting seems to be offered daily, although no time is currently listed on the website. On Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, guests can take advantage of Tour of the Palate, which includes a guided winery/museum tour and seated three-course food and wine tasting. We opted for this last option which, at $35.00 per person, turned out to be our most expensive winery experience.
Reservations are recommended for any of the tours, but tastings are always available to walk-ins. The grounds were actually pretty empty when we arrived at 2:00 p.m. on a Thursday. I do not think we could have walked into Tour for the Palate, but we definitely could have taken the 3:30 tour without prior arrangements.
The Grounds
Due to its museum focus, Hess Collection feels more enclosed than virtually any other winery we visited. We spent pretty much our entire two-hour visit indoors. The winery also feels more sterile than most other wineries, most likely due to the fact that it is basically a museum. At least it's a modern art museum, which adds some visual interest.
You may be wondering about the art. All is modern, which I expected, and most is sad or angry, which I didn't. I had actually hoped for some bright colors and fun, abstract designs to go with my wine. Instead, most of the collection is inspired by war and violence. A lot of modern art is like this, but Hess Collection is a bit much for those who, like my parents, are brand new to the whole scene. Magdalena Abakanowicz's fibrous sculptures are the creepiest, particularly the giant scythe and cluster of hauntingly headless figures. The most interesting work to me was that of Fran Gertsch, who creates photograph-like portraits by using a transparency of a picture to guide his painting. For high visual impact, I also liked Leopoldo Maler's continuously-burning typewriter sculpture.
Tour of the Palate
We reported to the front desk at 2:00 p.m. sharp, ready to depart on our tour. Our group included five or six others who I believe were all traveling together. We also met our guide, who immediately struck me as being a little abrasive in that she seemed to immediately assume that being from the Midwest, none of us were at all knowledgeable about food or wine. We do have restaurants here, and wineries for that matter!
The winery tour was to be the first part of our experience. What we actually got was an odd, disjointed series of events. First, we were given a tasting of white wine and escorted into a storage room filled with rows of barrels. This is - not the beginning of the winemaking process. Then, our guide led us halfway up a flight of stairs before asking us to pause awkwardly in the landing and stare up at a video that showed the grape-crushing process. We were next to go to watch a video which presumably showed some other aspect of wine-making, but our guide became totally flustered when the theater was unexpectedly occupied by another group and spent the next ten minutes talking about this scheduling conflict. If I had visited no wineries besides Hess Collection, I would have left Napa Valley just as clueless about winemaking as I entered it.
As a result of the scheduling snafu, we moved on to the museum tour which presumably lasted twice as long as it was supposed to. This explains why our guide basically ran out of art to talk about - the gallery isn't very large! She did give us some valuable information about the artists and their techniques, although much of it could probably have been gleaned from the plaques accompanying the art work.
About forty-five minutes after we started the tour, our group moved into a library-like room. It had an outdoor deck but the view was basically of the parking lot, so we mainly stayed inside. I was a little surprised when we were served all of our food and wines at the same time, as the online description had made it sound like we would be receiving more distinct "courses." On the bright side, the portions of wine were extremely generous (basically a full glass of three wines) and the combined food was enough for a meal. Here's what we ate and drank:
Pan seared diver scallop, honey crisp peach, blueberries, estate greens, and wild flower honey vinaigrette with 2007 Allomi Sauvignon Blanc
Duck confit, toy box mushrooms, English peas, grilled fennel and truffle mustard sauce with 2007 Artizen Mendo
Grilled prime skirt steak, garden ratatouille, roasted fingerling potatoes, mixed herb & balsamic vinegrette with 2006 19 Block Cuvee
The food was good, if a little cold, with the steak dish being the unanimous favorite. I did think the menu selection was a little bit odd in that I would have preferred to see more of an appetizer - entrée - dessert type selection or three lighter nibbles instead of a scallop and two fairly heavy meat dishes. Perhaps options were limited because of the wine-pairing aspect? Speaking of the wines, they were also fine although nowhere near the best we tasted during our trip.
We did enjoy the experience of tasting food and wine together and I would definitely sign up for something similar at a different winery. I know that Robert Mondavi offers a wide range of tasting options and I imagine many of the smaller places can put something together on request. I also had a nice time chatting with our fellow tour group members, at least until we were pretty much kicked out of the library so they could prepare for another event. We never did get to see that video.
Overall . . .
Hess Collection was not a hit with our group. I love the concept of art, food, and wine together, but unfortunately we found our Tour of the Palette to be disorganized and stuffy. Visit Hess if you are a fan of modern art or determined to hit every winery in Napa Valley, but I don't recommend spending a large chunk of your day here like we did.
*Wanna see which wineries we did like? Check out my review of Napa Valley!
Recommended:
No
Winery Name: Hess Collection
Country: USA
State or Region: California - Napa Valley
Date Visited: May 2009
Tours Offered: Yes
Tasting Cost, Per Person: varies
Guidelines for rating scale: Don''t bother
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