And so the story goes...

As the inventory of French wine grew over the years and was subsequently consumed I ended up with a surplus of empty French wooden wine cases that I was reluctant to dispose of although I didn’t know exactly why at the time. On one end of the wooden wine case box there is usually a simple ‘branded’ replica of the wine label or a ‘branded’ picture of the winery as it may appear on the wine label. In addition, it usually had the name of the winery, the region where it was located, and the vintage was also usually indicated. It then occurred to me that I could disassemble the cases and just using the end with the winery information on it make a decorative border around the top of the wine cellar. In addition it would also create a historical record of the French wines and their vintages that had passed through my cellar over the years. This was my original intention.

As I was carefully breaking the cases down I began lamenting the fact that some of my favorite California wines didn’t come in wooden wine cases. That it would have been nice to have both French and California wines represented on the border since the majority of the wine in the cellar was from these two wine regions. At the same time I was noticing that the other end of the case box is usually blank. I was reflecting on the fact that a few days earlier I was unpacking a box that had remained unopened from this most recent move. In that box I came across a crude woodburning set that my brother and I had as kids back in Canada. It was then that an idea had struck me. If the woodburning tool still worked (it did!) I might just may be able to take one of the blank ends of a wooden wine case and, using the woodburning tool, burn one of my favorite California wine labels onto the blank case end.

The first label I tried was the Cuvaison winery from Napa Valley. It was a fairly simple label showing a glass of red wine on the sill of an arched window. I first sketched the window and the red wine glass in pencil and then burned the outline of my pencil sketch. I was not satisfied with this first effort so I decided to try and add some color. I completed this first woodburning wine label by adding some green and red color. For me this first attempt at woodburning came with mixed results that left me unsatisfied. The piece of wood I chose was not the best, the picture I sketched in pencil and then burned was a little rough and I didn’t like the coloring effect. The Cuvaison wine label woodburning is in my cellar as part of the border mainly because it was my first piece of woodburning art; however I never considered it worthy of being shown on my website.

The second California label I burned was that of the Duckhorn winery. This is simply a profile shot of a mallard duck among some nine and cat tail reeds. When I finished this piece I was quite surprised and pleased with the result. This fact and the positive feedback I started to receive from others gave me confidence and encouragement to continue. The border that you can see in the pictures of my cellar have the prefabricated ends of French wooden wine cases with my own original woodburning art pieces of various wine labels, many from California, but also some of French, Italian, and South African wine labels as well.

So this is how I got started as a woodburning artist in 2000. I eventually branched out from just doing wine labels into other subjects and started experimenting with different types of wood. What you see on this website is where we are today.

View some of my client's wine cellars:

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