Tim McFarlane & Mural City Cellars
A color-tasty collaboration...
*Hi folks, here’s a little bonus post this month that I thought was going to be in the September newsletter I sent almost two weeks ago. This news wasn’t fully fleshed out until just after I’d sent that one, so I’m sharing it here. I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading*
Some taste for your buds
I’ve been sitting on this for a while, waiting for everything to be in place and now is the time! Earlier this year, Mural City Cellars (MCC) provided refreshments at an event at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery that took place during my solo show, All Of This Is True. Not long after that, they invited me to have some of my artwork images reproduced on the 2023 vintage of six MCC wines. Mural City Cellars is a local, independently owned Philadelphia winery that sources its grapes from small growers within 300 miles of the city. Late in the summer, the labels arrived and so far adorn the 2023 vintages of their Pino Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Pet-Nat Rouge and Pet-Nat Blanc!
MCC has been producing wines since releasing their first vintage in 2019. In recent years, they’ve usually collaborated with 6 different Philadelphia area artists for their labels, but this time, they changed things up and chose to go with one artist’s work and I’m truly honored to be that artist this year.
So far, there’s four varieties with my images on them and two more coming as soon as the wines are ready. I’m really happy with how the labels turned out and how well the images were paired so well with the wines. On each of the above labels is a cropped image of these paintings:
Pino Gris: Pink Mirror (2013), Sauvignon Blanc: THG (Walking Into A Dream) (2023), Pet-Nat Rouge: Untethered Variance (2021), Pet-Nat Blanc: Small Bright Corner (2023)
A toast
Of course, I had to try at least one of MCC’s wines and this past weekend provided the perfect opportunity. We visited friends in Cazenovia, a small town in upstate New York and took a bottle of Mural City Cellar’s Pet-Nat Rouge with us. I don’t have a sommelier’s knowledge of wines, but I know what tastes good to me and this tastes really good. I tend to like good fruity flavors and this fit the bill. I really enjoyed the deep, not too sweet, cherry flavors combined with the mild carbonation. The Pet-Nat Rouge was a great selection on a cooling fall evening.
I’ve been curious about the meaning of “Pet-Nat” wines and according to Food & Wine:
“Pét-nats are sparkling wines made in a manner that predates the so-called “traditional method” used in Champagne (and for most other sparkling wines). Rather than induce a second fermentation in the bottle to create the bubbles, as Champagne producers do, makers of pét-nat simply bottle the wine before the initial fermentation has ended. The result is softly fizzy, sometimes lightly sweet from residual grape sugars, usually hazy with unfiltered yeast particles, and typically sealed with a crown cap instead of a cork”
A pairing like no other
Last week, visited the Mural City Cellars Winery in the Fishtown section of Philly for the. first time and honestly, it was really great to see images of my work reproduced on so many of their bottles and people buying them as well. I wasn’t quite ready for photos, so please enjoy me posing awkwardly with the Pet-Nat Rouge. I have three others to try and I’m definitely looking forward to those.
I’m not sure if Mural City Cellars are selling their wines in other venues, but when you’re in Philly, visit their winery, located at 1831 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19125, (Frankford Avenue and Berks Street). See their other offerings online at Mural City Cellars.
[**Side note: the mural on the side of the building is by Daev Momo]
Thanks again for reading and and allowing me access to some of your time. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with news and more for October.
Congrats Tim!! 🍾🍷
That is fantastic!