A little Napa Valley, right here in the desert. We photographed House of Cab Phoenix, an evening of Napa Valley Cabernet at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley. Visiting wineries poured for guests across the inn's courtyard, among the palms, the saguaros, the stone fountain and the string lights, and our job was to bring back the people, the details and the atmosphere that made the evening what it was.
A walk-around tasting in a courtyard
House of Cab is a walk-around tasting, not a seated dinner. Each winery poured from its own table, and guests moved between them at their own pace, talking with the visiting owners, winemakers and vintners. There is no stage and no running order to follow, which suits wine event photography: the pictures are wherever the conversations are.
The pours and the details
A wine event is remembered for its details, and every producer at the table wants to see its own. We worked the pour tables for the frames a winery can actually use: Cabernet running into a glass, a label turned toward the light, a cork coming off the corkscrew. Corks, bottles and table cards carry each producer's name through the set, so it shows the wineries behind the pours as well as the event itself.
Then there are the smaller things a guest walks past without noticing. Rows of upturned glasses catching the late sun. A silver tray of paired bites. Gift bags lined up in red tissue. None of them is the headline, but together they tell the host's story better than any single wide shot.
The guests
People come first, though. The best moments at a tasting are small and unplanned: two friends laughing at a shared joke, a hug across a winery table, a guest stopping mid-sip to talk about what is in the glass. We work from the edge of a group for most of this, so guests stay in their conversation instead of turning to pose, and the result is a set of faces that look like they were enjoying the evening, because they were.
Golden hour at the Hermosa Inn
The event ran from late afternoon into the evening, straight through sunset, and the Hermosa Inn's courtyard is at its best in that last hour of light. Low sun came through the palms behind the fountain and turned the garden gold, and that is when we made the wide frames of the night: the full courtyard with the House of Cab backdrop, the umbrellas and the crowd gathered around the pour tables. Those are the images an organizer reaches for when promoting the next edition, so they are worth planning for rather than hoping for, and a November sunset in Paradise Valley does not wait.
Event photography across the Valley
House of Cab was a wine event, but the brief is the one we bring to conferences, galas and brand launches alike: cover the people, the details and the space, and deliver a set the host can put to work. If you are planning an event in Phoenix, Paradise Valley or anywhere across the Valley, see our event photography in Phoenix.