The winery possesses breathtaking view of the corkscrew topiaries and cypress trees that frame the parterre garden, which cleverly covers the chardonnay cellar and acts as natural insulation.
Updated June 2022. Devising a secretive method of tasting wine in his father’s cellar at age 9 was something of a giveaway about Peter Newton’s future passion for viniculture. The fact that this early childhood subterfuge took place in his home in London, England, would explain his proclivity for gardening. Combine these traits with a marriage to Su Hua—a woman of sophistication, imagination, and mad marketing skills, who honed her sartorial style on the catwalk for Coco Chanel and meanwhile procured an M.D. after her name—and you have the essence of the personality of the gardens at Newton Vineyard in St. Helena, California. Molly Chappellet’s pronouncement in Gardens of the Wine Country (Chronicle Books, 1998), “Show me a garden and I’ll show you the person,” could be referencing this garden and its originators specifically.
A sweeping box-bordered path leads the eye to the terrace and hillside beyond.
Drive into Newton Vineyard and you’re met by a jaunty red British phone booth accompanied by a sleek, rusty-red Asian-style lamp, the first of many that pepper the property. Ascending the hillside to the winery and gardens, there’s a scenic overlook outlined in oh-so-British ancient staddle stones that look like playful mushrooms. Next, a hillside of English garden roses leads up to French parterres and exuberant English borders, surrounded by corkscrew juniper topiary trees to rival Versailles, and a phalanx of Italian cypresses. At the top of the gardens stands a shiny Chinese-red torii gate, signaling the private family residence further up the mountain. And for luncheon parties, tastings, or special events, there’s a terrace dotted with bright-red tables, chairs, and umbrellas. From there, guests enjoy a breathtaking view of the vineyards including a distant, lone pine tree poignantly perched at the highest point on the property. This tree, affectionately known by all in the area as “Pino Solo,” is the emblem on Newton Vineyard wine labels. The silhouette of this stand-alone tree articulates the mantra of the vineyard, “singular wines created from a singular passion.”
LEFT: Cultures cross at the entrance to Newton Vineyard gardens with this jolly red London phone booth and its accompanying Asian lamp on an indigenous stacked-stone column. | RIGHT: English staddle stones dot the estate and give another nod to Peter Newton’s country of origin.
One of Peter Newton’s most ingenuous sustainable strategies was to plant the parterre garden on top of the chardonnay wine cellar, thereby keeping things naturally insulated and cool. Other eco-friendly tactics include the use of ponds on the property for irrigation, cover crops such as rye, oats, strawberry clover, and purple vetch planted in the vineyards to discourage soil erosion and improve its fertility, and, of course, recycling and composting—staples of all green gardens. The grapes are picked by hand, and the wines are bottled without filtration, encouraging the true natural flavor of the indigenous grapes.
LEFT: One of the 3,000 roses of 31 varieties that lives at Newton. | MIDDLE: A bottle of Newton’s famous unfiltered chardonnay (the casks of which are stored under the parterre garden) is perched on the fountain’s edge. Other premiere unfiltered wines of Newton Vineyard include merlot and cabernet sauvignon. | RIGHT: Roses climb gamely up the trellis of the winery.
Naturally, spring, with the abundance of flowers in bloom, summer, with leafy green vineyards, and fall, with its coppery-colored vines and golden oaks and maple trees surrounding the area, are the most obvious seasons to visit, but winter provides a quieter, more sculptural landscape, and a more dramatic vista of Pino Solo that makes it worth a special trip.
Not shy about the use of playfully exaggerated forms, the owner and garden designer, Peter Newton, employed these corkscrew juniper topiaries to whimsical effect above a bank of English garden roses.
UPDATE: A while back, I visited Napa Valley’s Newton Vineyard. I spent the day directing a photo shoot and learning all about the genesis and development of one of the most interesting and exquisite properties I’ve ever had the good fortune to experience. We featured the story in our November/December 2013 issue. Sadly, this Edenic vineyard/garden has since been destroyed during the brutal wildfires of 2020. All the more reason to highlight this special place again, this time on the cover of our anniversary issue. There’s a kind of rich poignancy that I would have missed had I not had the opportunity to visit and cover Newton Gardens. I would not have been able to appreciate and share its magnificent beauty and artistry with our readers, of course, but I would also not comprehend the magnitude of the devastation wrought by the fires. While the property was destroyed in the wildfires, its legacy stays alive in the archives of Flower.—Margot Shaw, June 2022
For more information, visit newtonvineyard.com.
By Margot Shaw | Photos by Eric Wolfinger
