A good puzzle illustration gives you plenty to look at. A great one gives you something new to discover as the pieces come together.
For artist Christine Reite, creating Oakland Puzzle Company’s California Wine Tasting puzzle meant drawing on years of experience in the wine industry, digging into California wine history, and thinking carefully about how every element would feel not just as an illustration, but as a puzzle.
The result is a vintage-inspired tasting room filled with details that nod to California’s wine regions, its visual history, and the traditions that have developed around them.
Drawing on Years Inside the Wine Industry
Before creating the California Wine Tasting artwork, Christine spent years working with wine brands, including time at Concannon and Wente and on projects involving larger wine companies.
Much of her work revolved around brand building and promotional design: understanding where a brand came from, how it presented itself visually, and where it could go next.
That experience became an important starting point for the puzzle.
When Christine began conceptualizing the illustration, she found herself thinking back to the wine brands and places she had encountered throughout her career. But instead of reproducing a particular winery or tasting room, she used that knowledge to build an imagined space that could represent the broader California wine experience.
The barrels, labels, maps, food, wine and other details all work together to create a scene that feels familiar without belonging to one specific place.
Looking Back to Create Something New
The puzzle is described as vintage-inspired, and that vintage character came from research as much as imagination.
Christine revisited historical wine imagery through books, online research and materials she remembered from her time in the industry. She was especially drawn to older typography and graphic styles, including visual elements used in wine advertising during the 1920s and 1930s.
She also looked at another familiar piece of wine imagery: the sweeping vineyard landscapes that appeared frequently on labels in later decades.
Those influences are woven throughout the finished scene rather than recreated literally.
The map on the tasting room door, for example, was influenced in part by old railroad graphics. It became a way to give the illustration another historic touch while also showing California’s wine regions.
“I hope people like the map. I really think that California wines and the different AVAs and where things come from are pretty cool.” — Christine Reite
That map is one of Christine’s favorite details in the entire puzzle.
California Wine Country, Beyond One Region
California wine can easily become synonymous with Napa, but Christine wanted the puzzle to tell a broader story.
Livermore Valley was particularly important to her. She worked in Livermore during her time at Concannon and Wente, and she also has a family connection to the area: her great-uncle’s family once had a winery there.
She incorporated subtle references to that history into the fictional wine labels within the artwork, including a nod to Livermore’s rodeo tradition.
Other parts of the illustration acknowledge wine-and-region pairings that Christine felt belonged in a picture of California wine culture. Cabernet gets its place at the table, while Lodi’s association with Zinfandel also finds its way into the scene.
Rather than simply filling the image with generic bottles and barrels, Christine researched what comes from where and considered which details would help the scene feel recognizable to people who know California wine.
Those discoveries also give puzzlers something to notice as the image takes shape.
Designing an Illustration That Has to Become a Puzzle
Creating attractive artwork was only half of the assignment.
Christine is a puzzle fan herself and had completed other Oakland Puzzle Company puzzles before creating California Wine Tasting. That meant she approached the illustration with a good understanding of what happens after the artwork leaves the artist’s hands.
A tasting room naturally contains a lot of wood and neutral tones. That might work beautifully as a standalone illustration, but hundreds of similarly colored puzzle pieces can create a very different experience.
Christine deliberately looked for opportunities to create variation. Color comes through in the fictional labels, the map, wine, food and other details throughout the room. Oakland Puzzle Company founder DeAnna Tibbs also suggested bringing more food into the foreground, which helped brighten the composition and give puzzlers additional visual landmarks.
It was part art direction and part puzzle design.
“The puzzle’s a little different because you’re trying to think about: How is this going to be put together?” — Christine Reite
That question influenced decisions throughout the illustration.
Christine wanted enough variety to keep the puzzle interesting and give people visual clues, while still leaving enough similarity and complexity to provide a satisfying challenge.
When she creates a traditional illustration, she is primarily asking whether the image successfully communicates its idea. With a puzzle, there is another person to consider: the puzzler who will spend hours moving through the image piece by piece.
Is it engaging? Is it challenging? Is there enough happening to make you want to keep going?
Those questions became part of the creative process.
A Puzzle Made for People Who Love Wine Country
There is history in California Wine Tasting, but Christine never intended it to feel like a history lesson.
There are recognizable elements for someone who knows wine, small discoveries for someone who enjoys design, and plenty of visual variety for someone who simply loves putting together a good puzzle.
Most of all, Christine hopes it provides a little fun.
“I just hope they enjoy it. You know, that’s why I did it.” — Christine Reite
That may be the best description of the California Wine Tasting puzzle itself.
It is an artist’s interpretation of California wine country that draws on real experience and thoughtful research, but ultimately it was created to be explored one piece at a time.
Bring a little California wine country to the puzzle table.
Explore the California Wine Tasting puzzle from Oakland Puzzle Company, or learn more about carrying Oakland Puzzle Company puzzles in your shop through our wholesale program.