Napa’s Louis M. Martini Winery Is Becoming a Work of Art

Nestled in Napa Valley’s radiant vineyards, the Louis M. Martini Winery in St. Helena, California, has long been renowned for its Cabernet Sauvignon and 90-plus years of winemaking tradition. But lately, it’s quietly emerging as a destination for cutting-edge contemporary art.

Last Friday, during the FOG Design+Art fair and San Francisco Art Week, esteemed multidisciplinary artist Abraham Cruzvillegas unveiled Two Abstract Maps (An Alchemical Self Portrait) (2024), a pair of murals installed at the winery. Cruzvillegas follows Rosa Barba, the conceptual artist known for sculptures that engage with filmmaking (and who will have a show at the Museum of Modern Art this spring). It’s only the beginning for the winery’s ambitious art program, which invites contemporary artists to create permanent, site-specific works exploring the interplay of art, winemaking, and Napa’s rich history.

Cruzvillegas is known for site-specific installations and his works can be found in the collections of major museums across the world, including the Centre Pompidou, Colección Jumex, LACMA, MoMA, SFMOMA, and the Tate. At the winery, Two Abstract Maps unfolds across the main building, a sleek space combining 1930s-era terra-cotta walls with dark wood and glass from a 2019 renovation, housing tasting areas, a cellar, and many rows of wine barrels.

Inside the tasting room, the mural Culture-map uses salvaged terra-cotta tiles, cut and painted pale green, to form a relief map of Napa Valley. Octagonal nodes mark Indigenous heritage sites and winemaking landmarks, with thick lines tracing the valley’s contours. Outside, the Nature-map is carved into the building’s façade, representing local flora like native grasses and manzanita shrubs, as well as the migratory paths of snakes, gophers, and coyotes. “It’s kind of an addition/subtraction dynamic,” Cruzvillegas explained, “and it’s meant to question, ‘What happens in between?’ This is similar to the experience of tasting wine.”

Before creating the installation, Cruzvillegas took the opportunity to learn about the winery and winemaking. “I spoke with the winemakers, we went to the vineyards, I spoke with people taking care of the plants and the soil and the whole environment that surrounds the vines,” he recalled. “It took me to history and learning about the local species and local people.” The resulting works aren’t direct representations of Napa, its Indigenous peoples and plants, or its winemaking traditions, but are instead intended to evoke feelings and provoke personal interpretations. “You should construct your own meaning, your own experience and sensations,” Cruzvillegas said.

The artworks’ materials themselves tell a story. Cruzvillegas found stacks of terra-cotta tiles—left over from the winery’s original structure after the 2019 renovation—during a site visit. “I asked if I could use them—I didn’t know what for yet. It was kind of a blind date,” he said. The tiles became a bridge between past and present in the Culture-map. Outside, the Nature-map is incised in the same tiles, with soft green lines blending subtly into the façade as though they had always been there.

Louis M. Martini’s art program, curated by Georgia Horn, focuses on deep thematic connections between art and wine. “The art is not decoration; it’s not ornament. It’s not superficial in literal or conceptual ways,” Horn explained. “It’s physically integrated into the architecture and conceptually connected to the craft, care, nuance, and complexity of winemaking.”

Horn sought out artists with histories of creating site-responsive work. “I was really looking for artists interested in concepts like time, memory, subjectivity, perception, the way light interacts with color, and the way we interact with space,” she said.

This was evident from the start with Barba’s Open Field Poem (2023), a kinetic installation at the main building’s entryway outdoors, just past rows of 100-year-old olive trees. Using heliostats (devices that track the sun and reflect its light on a specific target) and colored glass, the piece casts shifting red and orange light onto engraved stanzas in paving stones. “She designed an incredible orchestral performance conducted by the sun,” Horn said. “Atmospheric conditions dictate how you interact with the work, making it a beautiful way to engage with concepts fundamental to winemaking, like ecosystems, time, and place.”

Horn had previously seen Cruzvillegas’s abstract maps at kurimanzutto, the Mexico City–based gallery that represents him. “I thought, ‘what a beautiful way to tell the story of this valley, to create another subjective experience that will activate people’s sensory experience when they walk in,’” she said.

Louis M. Martini joins other wineries that have embraced contemporary art, including Castello di Ama in Tuscany, Italy, and the Donum Estate in Sonoma, just a valley away from Napa. But Horn emphasizes what sets Martini apart: “I want to tell a more universal story, tied to this place and its history, while also looking toward the future.”

Accessibility is central to the program, which aims to strip away the intimidation that often surrounds both art and wine, while encouraging subjective experiences.