A Year in Wine Country

Golden autumn trees arching over a country road in St. Helena, Napa Valley

A vineyard is never just one picture. Bare wire in February, green aisles in April, gold over the road in October — the same valley, rephotographed by the calendar. Here's a year of driving the same wine-country roads, and stopping when the season changed the frame.

Tree Lined Road in Autumn

Start where most people picture it: October in St. Helena, two rows of trees closed gold over a straight lane, the vineyards on both sides gone the same color, sun coming through the top of the canopy. This is one week of the year. The rest of it looks nothing like this.

Blooming Mustard Flower Vineyard

Wild mustard flowers blooming gold between dormant vineyard rows, Napa Valley

Rewind to late winter. The mustard comes up wild between the dormant rows — the vines still bare wire and rusted posts, the yellow thick enough to hide the ground. A gray sky over Napa Valley. It's the first color the valley gets, weeks before the vines leaf out.

Carneros Vineyards in Spring

Neat rows of spring vines stretching toward the hills in Carneros, Sonoma, California

By spring the aisles are the brightest thing in the frame. The vine rows still converge down the Carneros slope, bare, but the grass between them has come in electric green and the hills behind have softened. Sonoma, new growth.

Vines and Hot Air Balloons

Hot air balloons drifting over vineyard rows at dawn, Yountville, Napa Valley

Summer starts early here. Two balloons drift low over the vines at first light, the sky going pink behind the hills before the heat arrives. Yountville — the vines full and dark now, nothing like the wire of February.

Swallowtail Butterfly

A swallowtail butterfly on a cluster of pink blossoms in Napa Valley, California

The valley isn't all rows. A swallowtail works a cluster of pink blossoms at the vineyard edge, wings backlit, the green gone soft behind it. Not the kind of frame you get from the car window.

Napa River Sunset

The Napa River at dusk from the air, winding under a highway bridge and through town, Napa, California

The last frame is an aerial at dusk — the Napa River under the highway bridge, running out toward the marshes. Sky and water both orange, the town lights just coming on.

Each of these is an archival print, framed or unframed. If one of these seasons is the valley you know, the prints are below.

Prints from this story