There are two striking features of the tasting room at Guzzo Family Winery, a reds-only producer in the Applegate Valley. First is that you could accurately insert ‘micro’ in front of ‘winery.’ The cozy space that doubles as the tasting room will accommodate twenty in close proximity to tanks, lab gear and other winemaking apparatus. The other thing is the painted wine barrels with their sparkling beveled glass tops that serve as tables. Paula Guzzo, owner with husband Tony, has been painting Oregon landmarks on barrels retired from the winery ever since she took a few “paint and sip” classes several years ago.

“I never tried painting before those classes. I went with a friend. I said, I don’t paint. But it was fun and I kept going. I was so involved in the painting I wasn’t drinking the wine… I learned a lot and I said I’m going to try a barrel.”

Guzzo’s barrels are thirty-gallon American Oak, retired after two or three years of use for aging wine. “I have to sand them and get them ready to accept the paint. I don’t try to cover up all the wine stains that are on the barrel because I think that makes it unique. They’re only a few years old, so they’re in really good shape. I try to put vineyards on a lot of them along with landmarks such as Table Rock, Three Sisters, and Harris Beach. I do study canvases first to use as a guide for how I’m going to arrange the scene on the barrel. It looks better on the barrel sometimes than it does on the canvas because painting directly on the wood creates a richer look.” Study canvases and the finished barrels are for sale at the Guzzo tasting room.

It must be fairly daunting, the prospect of painting a unified scene on a barrel, if only in terms of the surface area. Guzzo says you start with the bung, the plug in the barrel’s fill hole. “I start with that because it sticks out and its placement in the scene needs to be determined first,” she explains. She points to a barrel with Table Rock on one side and Mount McLoughlin on the other. “The bung is a waterwheel. It’s from a picture I took at the Touvelle Lodge. In the back of the lodge is a little waterwheel and you can see Mount McLoughlin behind it.” She points to a vineyard painted on the other side. “The vineyard is not really right there in front of Table Rock—it’s really mostly cherry trees growing in that area— but I added it.” The ground fog flowing around the base of Table Rock is authentic, she adds, and is also captured on the photo of Table Rock that appears in the 2019 Oregon Wine Experience (OWE) pamphlet, the guide to the annual wine extravaganza sponsored by the Asante Foundation to raise money for local hospitals and the Children’s Miracle Network.

Guzzo is gratified that the scene on this barrel fit perfectly with the OWE theme, because for the third year running she donated a barrel—with a glass top this year—that was auctioned at the fundraiser. Sarahanne Driggs, Events Officer with the Asante Foundation says, “The silent auction is a main highlight of the Miracle Auction and Salmon Bake on Saturday.”

Robin Galloway, Oregon State University Professor Emeritus and long-time OWE volunteer and attendee purchased the barrel Guzzo donated in 2018. “I started going to OWE when it was at Del Rio,” Galloway says, “and have enjoyed watching it grow in Jacksonville. The Grand Tasting is my very favorite event, trying different wines and pairings and seeing all of them in one place at one time.” She recalls Guzzo’s barrel was elevated on a stand and that it immediately captured her attention. Reflecting on her successful bid, Galloway says she admired the way a painted barrel “epitomized the practicality and luxury of the wine industry.” Her barrel, she notes with its scene of Harris Beach, “looks kind of Mediterranean with the grapes and the water. I like to sit with glass of wine and zone out looking into that picture.” Galloway chuckles about coming to the realization that she had to transport her purchase. “I had to cram it into my Subaru—which I didn’t think about when I bought it, but it all worked out.”

“Yes, a thirty-gallon barrel will fit in the back of an SUV,” Guzzo says with a smile, “and it’s even better if you put a couple of cases of wine in to stabilize it.”

©Southern Oregon Wine Scene – from the Fall Winter 2019 issue