We’ve all seen the adorable social media pics of couples at wine and paint nights, holding up their masterpieces and making cringe-worthy puns in the caption. Pinot’s Palette Alameda reached out to the Bliss and invited us to their one-year anniversary soiree—the perfect opportunity to surprise my boyfriend with a cliché date.
We arrived a little early to grab some snacks and wine before it was go-time. The walls are covered in—what else? – the lovely artwork of other aspiring artists. Naturally, seeing all these perfect paintings made us freak out amongst ourselves, as we remembered that both of us failed the arts and crafts portion of elementary school several times. Nick is a bit of a perfectionist, so he was freaked out about replicating the awesome painting of the Golden Gate Bridge and doing it justice. I am whatever the exact opposite of a perfectionist is (the euphemism for “slob” is escaping me), so I was freaking out over the exciting chance to fling paints all over a canvas.
Of course, these nerves were nothing a little liquid courage couldn’t remedy. We were immediately impressed with the well-curated selection of East Bay wines and beers. Upon being confronted with all these choices, I realized that I couldn’t be unfaithful to my beloved Rock Wall wines, and went with a delicious red. Nick, resident beer enthusiast, went with a Drake’s.
and not at all staged photo
We took our seats and met our awesome instructor, who has more artistic skill in his beard than I have in my entire soul. We painted in layers, taking breaks to let the paint dry, refresh our drinks, and mingle. To our surprise, it was actually pretty manageable to paint along with the class. The staff here does an excellent job of coaching the class without it feeling overly pedantic or stuffy. We especially loved the energizing music while we painted. I never fully recognized my positive feelings towards Shawn Mendes until I was stippling paint in time to the beat.
Before we knew it, the bridge was taking shape on our canvases and our masterpiece was complete! Overwhelming guilt requires me to share that the staff graciously traced the bridge outline onto our canvases with chalk. But still, we did this!
We really liked seeing how each person’s painting turned out a little differently. In our case, our paintings reflected our personalities very well! I have a knee-jerk reaction to following directions, in that my knee jerks in the completely opposite direction, so I added a lighter sky and some Peter Pan imagery into the mix. Nick’s looks amazing with the addition of some extra orange in the sky, and received tons of compliments!
I would definitely recommend Pinot’s Palette for a date night, girl’s night out, club meeting, fundraiser, or family bonding time. It was well-paced, lasting around three hours, and the atmosphere turned the night into a party. Look out for these up-and-coming artists at SFMOMA any day now.
A big thank you to Sean, one of the owners, and the rest of the talented and extremely welcoming Pinot’s Palette Alameda staff for an amazing date night!
