Winery Gardens - Darioush

One of the bonuses of living in San Francisco is that you are only 1-2 hours away from good wine tasting. The climate that is so conducive to growing good grapes is also very good for growing vegetables and flowers, and most of the wineries have really pretty gardens.

Last year we went up for a weekend and stopped at Darioush, which is known for its super expensive Cabernets and its very over-the-top, Las Vegas-like tasting room styled after Persepolis, which was the capital of ancient Persia. I wasn't a huge fan of the faux-Persian theme, but the gardens are magnificent.

They have beautiful matching ponds/fountains out front with waterlilies, which were in full bloom when we visited:

They also plant a lot of native plants, which do very well with so much sun and require less water. They had this beautiful white flower, which I can never remember the name of but see in a lot of native plants gardens:

And some Jerusalem Sage:


Another cool touch that I liked a lot were their urns full of succulents. These are also pretty low maintenance plants and they seemed to be doing well with all the sun (it can get pretty dry and hot up there in the summer):


I liked the mix of higher maintenance, higher water need plants (water lilies, lawn) with the more hardy drought resistant plants (succulents, jerusalem sage). And while Darioush does not offer outside tasting, they do have nice picnic tables in their beautiful garden or you can sit on the steps near the grass and drink your $80 Cabernet.