LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Wine Studio is hosting a wine tasting event featuring wines from Gregory Graham, and artist reception with designer wall quilts made by Laraine Wade.

The event will be held on Friday, Nov. 4, from 5 to 8 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 5, from 4 to 7 p.m. 
 
The $15 ($12/per person for studio club members) wine sampler and appetizers by Fresh and Bangin’ Eatery will showcase the 2013 Chardonnay with a pork meatball garnished with mild curry and mango, 2012 Grenache with roasted root vegetables with a teriyaki glaze, black sesame and green onion, 2011 Cindercone with chicken egg roll, and the 2014 Moscato del Fresco with ginger ice cream and spiced cake topped with Mandarin orange.

In college, Wade majored in art and ceramics was her passion. She received her bachelor's degree and master's degree in art and then went to work teaching and raising two boys. She began quilting in her spare time.

After living in Lake County for 15 years, her family moved to Olympia, Wash., where she taught high school art. Since retiring from teaching, she quilts almost every day after working in her studio on paintings in a variety of mediums.

Wade’s first quilt was very traditional, but not interesting to her. She found that having to repeat a design was boring. She began to draw out her designs and never looked back. Asian fabrics caught her attention early on. She loved the elegance of the designs and the heavy gold accents, and mixes them with contemporary fabrics, sometimes adding Lamé and beads for glitz.

Wade’s creative process starts with sketches on copy paper and once she feels the design is right, she enlarges it on 1 inch graph paper drawing it to scale. Then, she uses tissue paper over the graph paper to make her patterns. Working on her family pool table she keeps the sizes manageable.

While considering color, texture and pattern, she pulls from two tables of fabrics and pieces the work together much like a puzzle. Then the shapes are cut out and the pattern pieces are replaced with fabric.

Wade enjoys the challenge of creating the design using many different patterns, colors and textures. She machine pieces and then quilts by hand.  The surfaces are richly covered with quilting, following the fabric's pattern or creating her own. This finishing stage is when the quilts come to life for her.

While working as head winemaker at Rombauer Vineyard in Napa, Greg Graham envisioned producing wines under his own label. He began to do so in 1992 using fruit purchased in Napa, Carneros and Knights Valley.

In the year 2000, Graham seized the opportunity to grow his own wine grapes when he and his wife Marianne purchased a 13 acre Zinfandel vineyard in the Red Hills Appellation of Lake County.

In 2004, purchase of an adjacent property planted to Cabernet Sauvignon expanded the Graham's operations to 27 acres, and their winery was built at the base of the vineyard hills. The vineyard soils are red, rocky, well drained and ideally suited for the grape varietals that Graham grows.

Graham harvests his grapes at the peak of fruit flavor development. In the winery, he uses boutique wine making techniques to control the quality, to bring out superior characteristics from the fruit and early bottling to preserve the flavors. The result is wines with bright, fresh fruit aromas and flavors with intensity and softness.

Lake County Wine Studio is a gallery for display and sale of art and a tasting room, wine bar and retail shop for the fine wines of Lake County. Artists’ shows are held on a monthly basis with art and wine receptions held the first Friday and subsequent Saturday of each month.
 
The gallery is located at 9505 Main St. in Upper Lake. The hours of business September through May are Thursday through Monday from 1 to 7 p.m., and Friday from 1 to 8 p.m.

The Wade art exhibit will be on display for the full month of September.

For more information call Lake County Wine Studio at 707-275-8030 or 707-293-8752.