A trip to Napa

Well - it was a while ago that we were in Napa, but I thought we would start with this post.

Day 1. So, Napa is beautiful. The ordeal of getting here - 6 hours in a plane, fighting with USAir to simply get seats together, the 2.5 hour drive from San Francisco (stuck in lots of traffic) - made for a long day. All of that just seemed to fade away as we drove through Sonoma, and by the time we hit Napa our whole attitude had changed. It was so green, with rolling hills, vineyards everywhere you looked. As we drove all we would say to each other is "I want to move here.....we should live here....this place is amazing!!!" Granted, by the time we checked into our hotel, went to find some dinner, and got back to the hotel we were wiped out.

Day 2. While we were waiting for Melissa and Kathleen to get here (they were not due until evening) Christine and I hit the wineries - but first we discovered SWEETIE PIES!!!! This absolutely amazing little bakery/restaurant about a half mile from our hotel. It's amazing what coffee and a little bit of sugar can do to your attitude. Anyway - Sweetie Pies should be on the top of anyone's list for breakfast while in the Napa area.

Off to the wineries - all 7 of them on this glorious day. We started with Frogs Leap - which as it turns out requires reservations. That said, the folks there were wonderful and gave us a nice glass of Zinfandel, and let us wander the grounds. Frogs Leap was probably my favorite in terms of walking around beautiful. From there we went to Provenance. Nice, the wines were good, the people were very nice, but the place was rather basic. Not much to write home about. From here we slipped over to Whitehall Lane. Nothing to write about here. The wine was rather so-so, and the folks at the tasting room were not too friendly. We then decided to head over to St. Suprey. This place is probably one of my all time favorites. Yes it's big, and yes they are one of those mass producers, but the wine is pretty good and the place is so friendly. We actually only intended to go in grab a few tastes and then head out to lunch. Instead we ended up trying just about every wine they had opened, and a few more that I asked them to open. Let's just say when we walked out we had two bottles of wine in our hands, and were members of the wine club.

A lot is often said about the Oakville Grocery - and just about all of it is good. We decided to stop by here for lunch, which was a pretty good idea since it was early afternoon at this point. This was the right move; if we were to visit one more winery with out having some food we would have totally crashed and burned. The setting is nice at the Grocery; rustic, with nice picnic tables out back to eat. The food was pretty good, not great, but pretty good. Just the same it was a great experience as you get to sit at the picnic tables and eat while surrounded by vineyards. Wonderful - and got us back on our feet, as we had many a winery still to visit.

The next winery we hit that day was Cakebread. This place is pretty good. Nothing fancy, but you get to take a short tour of the storage facility with a private group tasting. They pass out recipes for meals that will pair well with the wines they serve. The wines themselves are pretty good. They also give you the glasses to keep; very nice. From here we went next door to Sequoia Grove. Pretty nice inside, you feel like you are in a log cabin. The wines themselves were pretty good. The grounds were pretty basic. Since it was getting a little late we shot over to Peju Winery. This place is very pretty on the outside. Looks like a French chateau (look at picture above). Since it was almost 6:00, and most of the wineries are closed, Peju is jumping with guests. We were able to go up to the top tasting room where Ron was our server. Well tasting went well, and we struck up some conversation with the group of folks next to us. Finally as they were about to close up, the other group and us were the last folks there....and since we were the last group, and Ron had a bunch of bottles open, we were given the task of polishing off the rest of the wine - about a bottle and a half. Thing is Ron says to me "go ahead and pour for everyone." Which I took to mean "give everyone a glass." This seemed to be the wrong assumption. Ron flips out at the amount I am pouring, and starts dropping F-Bombs like mad. Seems I was pouring to much in each glass, they should be 1 ounce pours (which would have taken us about another hour to kill all that wine). Just as quickly as he got mad, he turned sad (Manic Ron we shall call him). He apologized like crazy - let us have our wine tasting for free, and gave us a free bottle of wine. Gosh, I like Manic Ron.

We got back to the hotel in time to catch Kathleen and Melissa. After a little siesta (we were pretty drunk), we gathered ourselves together and made for some dinner. A big THANK YOU goes to Mr. Howard Shapiro who tipped us off about the restaurant for that night - The Bounty Hunter. A great wine bar and barbecue joint. The food was FANTASTIC. So good we went back the next night for drinks. If you ever go try the pulled pork or brisket sandwich's. Amazing.

Day 3. After a little breakfast at Sweetie Pies (of course), we headed out for our mission of some more wine. First stop though was Trader Joes. We stopped to pick up some cheese, bread, fruit, and water for lunch. Great idea by the way, the Trader Joes is right off the main Hgwy in Napa. Nice to pick up some stuff to take that's cheap. Our first winery of the day is Heitz Cellars. Great place, as the wine tastings are free. Yum on the wine too. The pourers are so friendly, and will give you a nice lesson on wine while there. A very nice place to visit. From there we were off to Turnbull. Small place, with pretty grounds. The wine was decent. Nothing outstanding about this place. Off to Plumpjack winery. Lots of attitude at this place. The pourers are trying to be really hip, the wine is pricy, but overall this place is nice. Good wine, but expensive. From here we swung by Groth – I really like this place. The grounds are beautiful, and the people were so damn nice. We thoroughly enjoyed the wine here – so much so we picked up a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to have during lunch (they were even nice enough to provide us with an opener).

Lunch was back to the Oakville Grocery. We just pulled in, grabbed a table out back, unpacked our lunch from Trader Joes, ran inside grabbed some glasses, and dove into a terrific lunch. What a setting.

After lunch we drove back to Silver Oak (right across the street from Groth). Silver Oak only serves two types of wine – the $100 type and the $80 type. Both are amazing! What is so nice about this place is that for 10 bucks you get to taste both, and keep the glass. What is even nicer is that you can keep going back for more of each (not that I think that they want you to, it’s just that we did). We must have had another 3 glasses of each. A steal at 10 dollars. And the wine is fantastic – if not a little too expensive. From Silver Oak we drove down the street to Silverado. Perched up on a hill overlooking a good bit of the Stags Leap district, Silverado is a great place. The wine flights come in two varieties – the 15 or 25 dollar type. We opted for the 15, and just went back for seconds (another case of I’m not sure this is allowed, but we did it anyway). Wine was good – in fact I really liked their Zinfandel – but the setting is what makes this place. You sit up top and just enjoy the view with a glass of wine in you hand. Awesome. From Silverado we drove over to Robert Sinsky. Talk about attitude. Honestly the wine comes in these pretty cool looking bottles, but honestly is not that great, and the service sucked. The only upside is that they offered up some appetizers that were not to bad. Next stop was Chimney Rock – last stop of the day (can you believe 8 wineries in 1 day!). Another place that wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Wine was good, but service was slow. In the end we were wiped out, and headed back to the hotel. Dinner reservations at 7:30 at Bistro Don Giovanni.

Bistro Don Giovanni is this Italian place –inside I swore I was at Olive Garden – but the food was pretty good. Christine and I shared a salad and a pizza – both of which kicked butt. After that we headed back to the Bounty Hunter for good night beer (I had way too much wine that day to keep up with more).

Day 4. We got up and planned on only hitting one winery, but that turned into two. Actually, Kathleen and Melissa hit two, we just were along for the ride. First stop was Domain Chardon, sparkeling wine, not my thing. Nice place – in fact we picked up some storage boxes to bring our wine home in – all 16 bottles we bought.

While those guys were there Christine and I drove around Yountville – this is the place. The perfect little Napa Valley town. Pretty, great little homes, fine restaurants, good little downtown, and close to everything. This is the town if I had my way I would live in. Eventually.

Next stop was V. Sattui. This place is a sideshow. Packed with so many people. Tip to the wise – tastings are free here during the week, on the weekends it’s 5 bucks. We did a little wine tasting, picked up some lunch, and then headed over to Muir Woods.

For those who don’t know Muir Woods is a short 30 minute drive from downtown San Francisco. It has nice hiking trails, and is full of Redwoods. Some of the tallest trees in the world are found in this little park. We got here with about an hour or two to spare, and did a short hike. Great, great, great.

After Muir Christine, Melissa and I headed over to San Francisco while Kathleen headed home. Melissa was taking the red eye, and we were headed to the Plump Jack Café. For the night though we checked in to the Sir Francis Drake hotel, just off of Union Square. An old hotel, with small rooms, but has great character. One of the fun places to stay in that town.

Dinner at the Plumpjack is great. A stylish little place, with a fun menu. One great thing is that they have this nice wine list that has no markup. So if the wine is 40 bucks at the winery, it’s 40 bucks at the restaurant. Awesome.

This concluded our fun weekend in Napa/San Francisco. We had an absolute blast. One of the best vacations I can ever remember.

Now – I’m sure I can throw in a later posting with the story of the pole, Target, and the bug cleaner, but that’s a story for another time.