Triptych of the Vine: A Turley Drinking Gallery
You wind your way through the narrow streets and find yourself before an understated doorway, where a small sign reads:
“Limited time exhibition: Turley 2023 – A Drinking Gallery.”
Intrigued, you cross the threshold.
The room is bathed in soft, amber light. No velvet ropes, no crowds. Just three illuminated panels before you, each accompanied by a single bottle resting in quiet reverence, aside a tasting glass. It feels less like an exhibition and more like a communion. You draw closer, and the labels come into focus. Old Vines. Kirschenmann. Ueberroth.
Each bottle, a different landscape. Each glass, a different vision.
Gazing into the first panel, the scent of the accompanying glass illuminates your senses. And just like that, you’re not in a gallery anymore. You’ve entered the triptych.
Panel I
Old Vines Zinfandel 2023 – The Ancestor
The painting is deep, layered; midnight garnet breaking into bruised plum, with strokes of burnished mahogany. Its texture is thick, oil applied with conviction, as though every brushstroke has weight and memory. You lean closer, and there it is: the scent. Dark fruit rising like incense from the glass enclosing it – dusty velvet curtains opening onto somewhere familiar and old. There is warmth, but not heat. Time, but not stillness. Emotion sits heavy at the bottom of your throat. This is not the work of a newcomer. Instead, the first chapter of a family chronicle, painted not in haste but in heritage.
Panel II
Kirschenmann 2023 – The Impressionist
The second canvas is lighter, its palette lifted into rose quartz, crimson ripple, river-sand beige.
The paint seems to shimmer, as if caught in motion; you could swear the light is shifting across its surface. The accompanying scent rises softly; not dense, but perfumed, like footsteps through a sun-soaked orchard. There is a floral echo, a mineral coolness, something more elusive than definable. Here, the emotion doesn’t anchor. It flutters. You feel brightness across your chest, curiosity along the jawline. If the first panel was a story told by an elder, this is a whispered secret beside the water. You linger, knowing it won’t speak louder – but it will speak longer.
Panel III: Ueberroth 2023 – The Monument
The third panel towers, not in size, but in presence. Its pigment is darker, almost sculptural: obsidian, graphite, shadow layered upon shadow. The brushwork is stern, confident, closer to stone carving than paint. You could run a hand along its surface and feel edges. The glass beside it releases its voice slowly: deep fruit, echoing earth, something ferrous and elemental. The air changes and you stand a little straighter. Emotion lands low, grounding. If Old Vines is memory and Kirschenmann is movement, Ueberroth is gravity, everything pulled inward, held firm. It feels eternal. Not loud, but immovable.
You step back.
Three panels.
Three wines.
A single grape rendered in three dialects.
You are alone in the room, yet not unaccompanied. The exhibition ends without fanfare – no signage, no summary. Only the quiet understanding that Turley has not given you wine.
They have given you art.
