Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Lovingston Winery



The next day, August 16, I visited the Lovingston Winery which was very close to my temporary dwelling. This small "boutique" winery didn't have a fancy tasting room, didn't have grand landscape views, and only produced a short list of wines. This was fine with me as the emphasis is not on having weddings there but making the best wine possible. The tasting was offered at a small wooden bar overlooking the winemaking machinery and vats. Riaan Rossouw, the South African winemaker, personally offered the tastings and enthusiastically told the stories of his wines and the grapes that made them. After the tasting I sat in front of the winery building and drew the scenery you see here. Despite the pastoral quality of the drawing, Riaan played some of his favorite old rock music through the winery's sound system: Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. It was surreal to hear this powerful dark music while in the presence of the grapes of sweetness and peace. After the color sketch I went back inside to draw the wine vats from the vantage point of the tasting bar. I hope that the grapes didn't hear too much Velvet Underground; it might change the quality of the resulting wine.

Colored pencil and Pitt brown technical pen on sketchbook page, about 8" x 10", August 16, 2012. Click for larger view.

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