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CLOS PEGASE NEWS

Love in bloom
Valentine gift: 365 acres, 365 days a year
By John Lindblom, Staff Writer
St. Helena Star

Inasmuch as Jan Shrem and his wife Mitsuko are patrons of the arts, their marriage is a masterpiece. Enduring and cherished, the affaire d'amour shines no less than the many works of art that entice patrons to their Clos Pegase Winery.

It is a romance that has lasted for 40 years and yet is still a work in progress.

A master stroke was applied by Jan 20 years ago when, as a Valentine's Day present, he gave Mitsuko an entire vineyard in the prime grape-growing soil of Carneros, its 365 acres conveying that he loved her every day of the year.

Asked what caused him to give such an enormous gift, Shrem impishly replied, "Drinking." Then, still putting on, he quipped, "It was to show my appreciation for putting up with me."

More seriously, he said that he fell in love with Mitsuko's "enduring qualities" and added, "She has a classic face and she has gotten more beautiful as she has gotten older."

With Jan a year shy of his 80th birthday and Mitsuko in her early 70s, the two share a lifelong quest for beauty, as evidenced by their art museum posing as a winery on Calistoga's Dunaweal Lane. They began collecting the artwork more than 40 years ago.

"Art was always a passion for me," said Shrem. "My wife is a real artist and that brought us together. She went to an art school in Japan, but she is not a professional artist. I painted. I wasn't an artist, but I was always interested in art.

"She has very good eyes," he added regarding Mitsuko's role in selecting the superb-quality artwork that flows through Clos Pegase.

The discovery of their mutual connoisseurship that became the genesis of their love affair occurred when Jan hired Mitsuko as his assistant at the art gallery he owned in Tokyo in 1960. "She was my first employee," he remembered.

Mitsuko said she was drawn to Jan by his serious pursuit of quality. They were married in Switzerland nine years after they met, electing to leave Japan because of a regulation that required his name to be included on her family register, who opposed the marriage.

At the time, Jan owned a book-publishing business that he founded in Italy. Eventually, he sold his publishing houses in Europe and Japan and the pair lived in Paris for 13 years prior to moving to the Napa Valley in 1983.

"We drank a lot of wine and lived well in Paris, so my passion for wine superseded my passion for books," said Shrem. "I studied vineology. Then I heard so much stuff about California that I asked for someone I could look up there. They gave me the name of Andre Tchelistcheff."

He could do no better than learn the agriculture of the vines and the art of winemaking from the veritable father of viticulture in the Napa Valley.

"He was a wonderful person ... very small, smaller than me," mused Jan, who is a mere 5-foot-6. Tchelistcheff became a friend who taught him to make wine in the French style, and, among other things, the intricacies of 3,800 different varieties of the wine grape.

(John Lindblom photo) Jan Shrem, owner of Clos Pegase Winery, is delighted to be the object of affection of Mitsuko, his wife of 40 years. As a token of his love for Mitsuko, Jan presented her with a 365-acre Carneros-area vineyard on Valentine's Day 20 years ago.

Beginning with a 50-acre vineyard that he acquired for the bargain price of $1 million, Shrem began making his own wine in 1985. Obviously, he has enjoyed major success since then. Throughout, he has held steadfast in his quest for quality.

Speaking emphatically, he asserted, "Quality is the only thing that matters ... the most important thing in life. You associate with people of quality. If you make wine, you choose quality, not quantity or profit. You have to be passionate about quality."

Life, however, has not always surrounded Jan and Mitsuko with the quality, beauty and order of the type to be found at Clos Pegase. Each had up-close exposures to war during their formative years, albeit on different continents and at different times.

Jan was a small boy growing up in Jerusalem when he saw the bombs of the eternal Israeli-Palestinian war exploding.

"We were living on the outskirts of Jerusalem and if you lived there or in Tel Aviv you were safe," he recalled. Ultimately, his family moved to South America. From there, he went to New York to complete high school and after that was schooled at UCLA.

It was much worse for Mitsuko, who experienced the Allies' bombing of Tokyo near the conclusion of World War II.

"Oh yes, we were there. I saw the air raids," she said. "Our house burned down. Later, we came back to Tokyo to rebuild it."

Clos Pegase, Shrem explained, is a combination of the French word for a walled-in vineyard ("When we dug our caves, the stones made the wall.") and the mythological Greek Pegasus, who gave birth to wine and art by releasing the "Spring of the Muses." Its beacon is a towering, multi-angled abstract expressionism by the late French artist Jean Dubuffet which captures the attention of all who come in sight of the winery. What does it represent?

"Whatever you see," said Shrem.

Once you know Jan and Mitsuko, love seems like one good possibility.