METAL-BENDING CLAUDINE

When not assisting Terry with wine blending, Claudine is busy metal bending.

By Mira Advani Honeycutt

Visitors to our farmhouse tasting room are mesmerized by the 230-foot curvaceous fence that fronts the property. This is the creation of Claudine, who as a skilled furniture designer, wanted to add her artistic touch to Clautiere’s landscaping.

The creative process starts with pencil and paper, the drawing then enlarged to a graph paper. Once the design has been transferred to a life-size pattern, Claudine is ready to bend and then weld. Each of the twenty three, ten-foot panels are made of 5/16th inch hot rolled steel, that is bent cold by the artist.

Claudine whose inspiration comes from simply being a spirited woman got into welding by sheer necessity. Her house needed furniture, but unlike most people who go to a store, Claudine decided to make her own and started learning the craft. Her first creation? - Two solid steel end tables each weighing sixty pounds each - yikes!! “But as soon as I started playing with steel rods, our fate was sealed,” recalls Claudine. “Metal rods were my medium.”

A symbiosis of art and wine is what visitors love about Clautiere. And the sensuous curves of Claudine’s fence are a component of that total experience. Add to that our award-winning wines savored in the tasting room, vibrant with eye popping color and you encounter a sensory and hedonistic escapade like no other.

Outdoor, lays the beauty of the gorgeous landscape, the whimsical fence and Claudine’s gigantic mosaic balls dangling from the trees (more on that in our next blog).

Watch the video from our talented friend, Michael Rubottom, highlighting the fence that Claudine Blackwell produced for Clautiere Vineyard. The fence stands more then 300 feet and greets you when entering the winery.