Presqu’ile Wines: Visual Interpretations

Four paintings inspired by wines from the Santa Maria Valley

I’ve been tinkering with creating visual tasting notes, pairing my textual write-up with an image that echoes the wine’s sensibilities (find examples here and here). Recently, a rep from Presqu’ile Winery contacted me to see if I might be interested in tasting their estate wines and (if so moved) give them the same treatment.

I said yes. I’d previously admired their Santa Barbara County wines, which use purchased fruit, and was eager to taste production from their home estate. The site lies across 73 acres in the sunny Santa Maria Valley, an east-west gap washed with Pacific air that lowers the average annual temperature to 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Their rows are mostly planted to Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc, Syrah, and Nebbiolo. Although a fairly young vineyard, some vines are own-rooted, because the deep, sandy soils stymie phylloxera. Farming is practicing organic and SIP certified.

They sent four wines—Chardonnay, Aligoté, Gamay, and Pinot noir. I tasted them over a couple of days, jotting flavor impressions along with the colors and shapes that sprang from my synesthesia. They were all prismatic and evocative, characterful and distinctive, textural but with deep structure. Their accents shone like stars on a lake.

I decided to create four distinct images to reflect their unique personalities. The resulting paintings¹ are abstractions that, like much of my fine art painting, are inspired by nature, landscape, and figuration. Each image nods to the wine’s character without resorting to descriptive motifs, because the wines seemed to demand naturalism without the fussy constraints of literalism.

The paintings, with brief tasting notes, are below.

Chardonnay

Presqu’ile Winery Estate Chardonnay Santa Maria Valley 2024

Pale yellow with a fragrance of salted pineapple, cream, and citrus. The flavors span a spectrum, from lushly tropical (mango) to directly juicy (honeydew, cantaloupe). The acidity strikes at the sides of the mouth, a mid-experience wake-up, and the wine finishes saline. I admire how well it balances dark with light, acid with cream, fruit with salt.
12.5% ABV | $51

Aligoté

Presqu’ile Winery Aligoté Santa Maria Valley 2024

A wine with a profusion of tropical scents and flavors: banana, citrus, guava, mango. The texture is silken, with a salty, sandy finish. A filigree of herbs brings the fruit down to earth. Tasting, I had images of white sand in sun, pale waves lapping, tropical breeze. This wine is superbly delicious, beautifully balanced, and a screaming deal.
12% ABV | $36

Gamay

Presqu’ile Winery Gamay Santa Maria Valley 2024

Shiny ruby color with a fragrance of flowers and herbs, rhubarb, red grapefruit pith and peel. The texture is scintillant, shimmery, carrying flavors of wild strawberry and sylvan herbs. The finish is, again, saline, with a hit of brushy, sage-like greenery. Complicated but pure.
13.3% ABV | $38

Pinot noir

Presqu’ile Winery Estate Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley 2024

A limpid wine, pale but with an earthy, iron-red fragrance spritzed with citrus; later, there are strawberries and spring flowers. The texture is ethereal, the tannins vanishing, and there are suggestions of red fruits, turned earth, and juniper. Somewhat Burgundian in its commingling of geosmin and geranium. A wine rooted in soil.
13.2% ABV | $65

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Images ©2025 Meg Maker. Made using the iPad Pro 12.9″ fifth generation, Apple Pencil second generation, and Procreate v. 5. All wines were samples for review.

1. All two-dimensional image making relies on technology: tempera on panel, oil on canvas, pigment on paper, pixel on tablet. Digital painting is real painting, just as digital photography is real photography and digital music is real music. The artist masters the medium, then adds art.