After a year behind closed gates, Clos Pegase, the Michael Graves-designed winery on the edge of Calistoga, is pouring again. New owners Jay and Tammi Adair have spent the past year repainting the estate back toward Graves’ original color palette, sprucing up the gardens and putting art and sculpture back into the caves and galleries. The refreshed property is repositioning itself as an art-forward tasting stop, even as work continues on production areas and member spaces.
Bankruptcy Sale and New Ownership
Clos Pegase was one of the properties that went on the auction block after Vintage Wine Estates filed for Chapter 11 in 2024, with Adair-linked buyers surfacing during the court-supervised sales. As reported by the The Press Democrat, Adair’s group targeted Clos Pegase along with nearby Girard during the bankruptcy process. The deals were part of a larger breakup of more than 30 brands and estates across Napa and Sonoma.
Back To Graves’ Colors And Gardens
Tammi Adair led a hands-on restoration that enlisted Michael Graves’ architecture firm to recover the winery’s original color scheme and design details. The team replanted 52 cypress trees, added cherry trees around an 18th-century Carrara marble fountain, and chased down enough roof leaks to justify the yearlong closure. “It was more work than we thought,” Jay Adair told the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that the project quickly outgrew an initial 20-million-dollar estimate.
Art Is Back At The Center
The estate has brought back gallery and studio space and scattered sculptures and installations throughout the caves and grounds, including surrealist musical instruments by sculptor Guy Pederson and paintings and ceramics from Calistoga artist Carlo Marchiori. Local reporting and on-the-ground notes describe a soft reopening in March followed by a broader public return in April as the property eases back into the spotlight. The new gallery also includes a working studio where visitors may catch artists painting in real time, a deliberate nod to the winery’s original collector-driven identity.
What Visitors Should Know
Reservations are required for most visits, and the winery lists a Signature Tasting at 50 dollars per person, with longer flights and more curated tours at higher price points, according to the estate’s reservations page. The lineup includes seated tastings indoors and more relaxed outdoor options on the lawn, and Clos Pegase is on a limited schedule while it finishes cave and production renovations. For the latest availability and to book, check the tasting page at Clos Pegase.
The reopening is part of a broader push to rehabilitate properties sold out of the Vintage Wine Estates bankruptcy and to revive the visitor economies tied to those estates. Adair has said he is more interested in hospitality than aggressive expansion, and the new owners plan an Artist Series, a six-wine collection featuring a different collaborating artist on each vintage, as part of the relaunch, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle. If the early weeks are any indication, Clos Pegase is trading the muted tones it wore under prior ownership for the color, sculpture and performance that once made it one of Napa Valley’s more idiosyncratic stops.
