HALL St. Helena

Napa Valley winery’s guests enjoy museum-quality art while sipping high-scoring Cabernets.

With its landscaped grounds, museum-quality art, and glass-walled tasting room, HALL St. Helena captivates with equal parts glamour and whimsy. It’s difficult to miss Lawrence Argent’s 35-foot-tall polished stainless steel rabbit sculpture (Bunny Foo Foo) leaping perkily out of the vineyard that edges St. Helena Highway. Nearby, John Baldessari’s white fiberglass Camel (Albino) Contemplating Needle catches the eyes of guests entering the tasting room. The winery receives high marks from major critics for its Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux-style blends. As a bonus, the Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs of the affiliated WALT Wines label are poured at some tastings.

At 35 feet tall, “Bunny Foo Foo” is difficult to miss.

“Camel (Albino) Contemplating Needle” (2013), by John Baldessari.

Vibrant Visuals

Owners Kathryn and Craig Hall—she a former U.S. ambassador to Austria born into a family of Mendocino County grape growers, he the founder of the real-estate investment firm Hall Financial Group—have a keen sense of style. The art they have collected encompasses a range of traditional and alternative media, from painting and sculpture to textile, neon, and LED. In addition to sculptures and other installations, the vibrant exterior visuals include manicured rows of grapevines that seem to march gracefully westward toward the Mayacamas Mountains. Indoors, the state-of-the-art aging tanks and other equipment are as visually appealing as the art.

Fetching Setting

You can absorb this scene at ground level from Adirondack chairs flanking the broad lawn near the tasting room, second-floor perches in the tasting room, or (on tours) the restored 1885 Bergfeld winery building. Grapes have been grown on this property for well more than a century, but the setting has never appeared more fetching.

Deep into Cabernet

The grapes for HALL Cabernets hail from most of the Napa Valley’s 16 subappellations. All tastings include at least one of the winery’s top-rated Cabernet Sauvignons, but two tastings delve deeper into the varietal. The Cabernet Collector Experience focuses on wines from the Napa Valley’s most well-known appellations. For a splurge, reserve space at the best-of-the-best Platinum Experience, which explores how weather, geology, and other vineyard and cellar factors impact several small-lot wines.

View west to the Mayacamas Mountains from the Bergfeld Building.

Why go: art indoors and out; top-rated wines from numerous appellations.

This story originally appeared online in 2017; it was fact-checked and updated in 2024. Lead photo is a detail of Viewscope (2006), by Alyson Shotz, at HALL St. Helena.

Napa Valley winery’s guests enjoy museum-quality art while sipping high-scoring Cabernets.

Vibrant Visuals

Fetching Setting

Deep into Cabernet

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