{"id":2122484,"date":"2025-10-29T12:05:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2122484"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:05:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:05:41","slug":"the-donum-estate-brings-together-wine-art-and-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-donum-estate-brings-together-wine-art-and-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"The Donum Estate brings together wine, art and nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Carneros wine region, which straddles Sonoma and Napa counties with its rolling, vine-textured hills and cool breezes meandering in from San Pablo Bay, boasts some of California\u2019s best wineries. But only one welcomes you at the top of its driveway with the serene, spectral presence of a 20-foot-tall alabaster head of a young girl, \u201cSanna,\u201d crafted by famed Spanish artist Jaume Plensa.<\/p>\n

The Donum Estate, whose grounds showcase more than 60 monumental sculptures by the likes of Plensa, Louise Bourgeois, Ai Weiwei, Yayoi Kusama, Keith Haring, Doug Aitken, Robert Indian and Anselm Kiefer, to name a few, contains what is thought to be the largest private sculpture collection of any winery in the world. Some are boldly visible. Others are hidden in groves of trees or camouflaged within thick grasses. All of them can be visited by simply making a reservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are always like, \u2018Why haven\u2019t I heard of this before?\u2019\u201d said tour guide Alexandra Reif as she walked me and a friend along a narrow pathway near the winery\u2019s entry.<\/p>\n

Donum \u2014 Latin for \u201cgift\u201d \u2014 didn\u2019t begin as an art nirvana. First a dairy farm and then part of the historic Buena Vista Winery, the property was acquired by Danish entrepreneur Allan Warburg and three partners in 2008. By 2011, Warburg and his wife, Chinese-born art collector Mei Warburg, assumed full control of the site and began what would become an ambitious experiment\/passion project.<\/p>\n

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Mei and Allen Warburg are the owners and the visionaries behind the Donum Estate.<\/p>\n

(Alexander Rubin Photography)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The couple, whose primary residence is in Hong Kong, declined to be interviewed, but they always wanted art at Donum. The organization\u2019s Chief Executive Angelica de Vere Mabray notes that the idea of transforming the estate \u2014 which specializes in single-vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay \u2014 took shape slowly. \u201cArt was added intuitively, based on where it felt right in the landscape. Over time, that spontaneity evolved into something more intentional,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The first piece the Warburgs installed \u2014 Zhan Wang\u2019s \u201cArtificial Rock No. 126\u201d \u2014 is a tall, stainless-steel replica of a craggy scholar\u2019s rock from China, reflecting Mei\u2019s early interest in contemporary Chinese art. From there they added one or two pieces a year from around the world, that rate speeding up dramatically as their interest grew, and the vision became clearer. Since De Vere Mabray\u2019s arrival in 2019, the estate has added more than 30 works and refined its art program to focus increasingly on site-specific commissions.<\/p>\n

Nearly three dozen artists have designed works that respond directly to the estate\u2019s conditions. Completed in 2022, Olafur Eliasson\u2019s Vertical Panorama Pavilion (created with architect Sebastian Behmann \u2014 their design firm is called Studio Other Spaces) is a circular structure topped with a conical glass canopy composed of 832 vividly colored panels, each reflecting a different environmental attribute of the region\u2014soil conditions, sunlight, temperature, wind, humidity and the vegetative palette of the surrounding landscape. Nearby, Yang Bao\u2019s \u201cHyperspace<\/a>,\u201d a gold, mirrored pyramid accompanied by gleaming shards, nestled in a former lavender field, shimmers amid thyme, gingko, California poppies and native grasses, accompanied by haunting, and constantly mutating, music.<\/p>\n

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Yang Bao\u2019s \u201cHyperspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The Donum Estate)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cThe artists walk the property and choose their location based on how they want the piece to live in the land,\u201d says De Vere Mabray.<\/p>\n

Probably the most popular (and most Instagrammed) piece on the property is Richard Hudson\u2019s \u201cLove Me,\u201d a heart-shaped, oversize sculpture clad in exaggeratedly curved mirrored steel set atop a faraway hill. The property\u2019s most recent addition (installed this year), accessed via a winding path traversing thick grasses, is Sanford Biggers\u2019 \u201cOracle\u201d (2021), which fuses African and European masks, busts and figures. Aitken\u2019s \u201cSonic Mountain (Sonoma)\u201d is embedded in a deep Eucalyptus grove at the far end of the property. It consists of 365 stainless steel chimes, suspended from a circular canopy, each tuned to catch the wind and produce a soft harmony.<\/p>\n

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Richard Hudson\u2019s \u201cLove Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Robert Berg \/ The Donum Estate)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Local landscape architecture firm Arterra, which came on in 2022 for \u201cHyperspace,\u201d continues to work with artists, the owners, and Donum\u2019s vineyard team to shape the experience, following the lead of the existing landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about letting the art breathe and feel like it\u2019s always belonged here,\u201d says Gretchen Whittier, a partner at Arterra.<\/p>\n

That shifting setting creates often surprising variations in sensation and perspective, enabled by diverse vegetation, hills, a long pond, deep groves and, of course, thick rows of vines. \u201cThere\u2019s a moment when you turn a corner and suddenly there\u2019s this monumental work,\u201d says De Vere Mabray.<\/p>\n

Visits are by appointment only, and experiences are personalized. For $250, guests can traverse the 200-acre estate on a guided all-terrain vehicle, followed by wines and small plates. For $100, they can enjoy a wine tasting and guided art tour on foot. (With canap\u00e9s, it\u2019s $150.) A self-guided art tour priced at $50 allows you to experience the collection without a wine tasting. Donum\u2019s handout literature and website<\/a> provide labeled maps and thorough descriptions of each artwork.<\/p>\n

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Angelica de Vere Mabray is the chief executive of the Donum Estate, located in the Carneros wine region nestled between Napa and Sonoma counties.<\/p>\n

(Greg Gorman Photography)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Donum, says De Vere Mabray, tries its best to avoid the preciousness and insider vibe of many museums and art parks. Since this is a hospitality space first, she notes, \u201cyou\u2019re not being told how long to look or how to feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe art is serious, but it\u2019s also approachable. You can walk right up to it, touch it, sit beneath it. It\u2019s part of the land,\u201d says Whittier.<\/p>\n

The estate\u2019s minimalist welcome space and tasting rooms, a complex known as the Donum Home (as well as the production facility, housed on the footprint of the estate\u2019s former dairy barn), recede into the landscape, taking on the simple, abstracted shapes of agricultural buildings. Both were designed by Bay Area architect Matt Hollis.<\/p>\n

Despite its millions of dollars\u2019 worth of art, Donum is fundamentally a working vineyard and farm. Half of its 200 acres are planted for grapes and the rest are dedicated to gardens, orchards and farmland (Donum maintains additional vineyards in Russian River, Anderson Valley and the Sonoma Coast). Donkeys, including a couple, Clyde and Opal, patrol the vineyards to fend off coyotes, while chickens and sheep rotate through the rows, and hawks and owls are nurtured to deter rodents. Donum is one of the few wineries in California to be regenerative organic certified \u2014 which means its employees pay close attention to soil health and having a wide variety of healthy plants and animals.<\/p>\n

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Sculptor Jaume Plensa\u2019s \u201cSanna,\u201d 2015.<\/p>\n

(The Donum Estate)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The Warburgs continue to select every piece, says De Vere Mabray, based primarily on instinct. The process makes the collection feel a little inconsistent \u2014 particularly the pieces that are not site-specific \u2014 but also personal and quirkily surprising.<\/p>\n

Donum is not the only winery in the region to include contemporary art. In Napa, Hess Persson Estates displays works by several blue-chip artists in its gallery. Hall Wines in St. Helena curates art installations near its architect-designed tasting spaces. Santa Rosa\u2019s Paradise Ridge Winery features sculptural works in its gardens. And St. Helena\u2019s Louis M. Martini commissions contemporary works inspired by winemaking in its tasting room.<\/p>\n

But these places more or less treat their artworks as accents to the wine-tasting experience. At Donum, the wine, art and landscape feel calibrated together; they exist on more equal footing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to weave art harmoniously throughout the landscape,\u201d summed up the Warburgs, in an email.<\/p>\n

Adds Reif, our tour guide: \u201cOut here, it\u2019s just you, the vines, the sky and the art. Nothing\u2019s between you and the feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Carneros wine region, which straddles Sonoma and Napa counties with its rolling, vine-textured hills and cool breezes meandering in from San Pablo Bay, boasts some of California\u2019s best wineries. But only one welcomes you at the top of its driveway with the serene, spectral presence of a 20-foot-tall alabaster head of a young girl, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2122485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2122484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Donum-Estate-brings-together-wine-art-and-nature.com2F8e2F9a2Fb5c42ea44f8a8df55b4de904-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2122484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2122486,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122484\/revisions\/2122486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2122485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2122484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2122484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2122484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}