I Heard It Through The Grapevine

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We drove to Napa Valley today to do a little wine tasting, exploration of this valley, and to take some photographs. Napa Valley is only about an hour west on Interstate 80 from Sacramento, a developed corridor between the capital city of California - Sacramento and the coastal city of San Francisco. We packed the cooler for a hot day driving along this valley and set off some time late in the morning. As we got closer and closer to the coast and the valley, the vegetation became a little greener and more lush. The hills separate the valley from the coast, creating the Napa Valley, but these are only modest 800 m tall hills.

Our first stop in Napa Valley was the Robert Mondavi vineyard and winery, and this was everyone else's first stop as well. This was the only winery I had heard of prior to my visit, but this says more about my lack of winery knowledge. This winery is very popular, and it was very busy this day. There were hundreds of people wandering about: families, groups with drivers, and just about everyone else who had ever heard of Robert Mondavi. A band was warming up in the grass court yard - to be more accurate, the drummer was doing a sound check. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud was the sound track to our short visit to this all too popular and busy winery. We were there long enough to find out we didn't want to stay. It was a gong show there, sorry, a thud show. The architecture was striking, however. A low rise building perhaps adobe adorned with plenty of art, painting, busts, and full statues.

We quickly left and set off north again only a short drive to the St Supery vineyard and winery. A lovely old colonial house set among plenty of green. The actual winery was in another building. Far far fewer people here. Serene after the last winery. We wandered about looking at all the displays that described the wine making process. We saw the large steel containers that begin the fermentation process, and stacks upon stacks of oak barrels which give the wine its final taste and age. I wandered about the grounds into the demonstration vineyard taking plenty of photos.

We then moved north again to a shop that specialized in olive oil. A sign in the front of the building stated that America should end its dependence on foreign olive oil. A rustic looking interior nicely decorated, with oak barrels as stands and a couple of old wooden carts. Throughout the shop there were samples of olive oil, vinegar, spreads and other pastes. They supply you with a tiny piece of bread on a toothpick and then you sample whatever your taste buds desire. At the back they had some dessert port to try, and this was surprisingly delicious. Not sweet or sickly like I've had before, but smooth and so flavourful.

By now we are in need of some proper lunch. We drove north to a shop called Dean and Deluca, a fancy grocery / eatery. I bought some fried eggplant, spanakopita, quinoa salad and some absolutely delicious tomato and mozzarella salad coated in fresh basil. We ate standing up and the bar and did some people watching. The smart and elegant have driven up from San Francisco for the week-end.

Now it was time for some real wine tasting. We continued to drive north to the Clos Pegase winery. The building reminded me of some sort of Egyptian temple, tall, monolithic and painted red and yellow. We passed through the empty courtyard lined with short trees. The sun was getting lower in the late afternoon day, the shadows were getting longer. We walked into the wine tasting room. I tried four different white wines. One of them smelled like red but tasted like white. Two were too much oak for me, and the other was a good taste of fruitiness, not like juice of course. The pourer questioned my senses when I said that one of the wine smelled like red. She said no, I was crazy. I did have some red wine later that night for dinner, and that white wine, I still think, smelled like red. Perhaps I am crazy. We left the Clos Pegase winery and headed north a short distance to the town of Calistoga. Then we turned around to return south.

I thought it would be nice to try a red wine at a vineyard, but it turned out that we were too late everywhere, most wineries were closing at 5pm. So we headed south from whence we came. We saw the aftermath of a horrible car crash which must have just occured a few minutes before we passed it as there were no emergency vehicles on the scene yet. One car was clipped badly on one side, and the other was upside down, the roof had collapsed. I don't know how a car could be flipped upside down on such a slow and busy road as the Napa Valley road. Perhaps a little alcohol was involved, and speed, low sun and incompetence all played a roll. We got to Napa, the town, passing the emergency vehicles coming in the opposite direction a short while later. We stopped and wandered about town for a while, and along the river. There is quite a lot of stalled development and empty shops in Napa, the town. The economic downturn in the real estate market looks like its hit Napa, the town, hard. We ate at a nice restaurant outside. It was cooling off quickly that evening. Near us, outside was an elder couple with a dog, which sat on a chair and was fed at the table like a small child. Cute is not the word I was looking for.

We drove back to Sacramento in about one hour on a late Saturday night. We arrived at Old Sacramento just in time to see the end of baseball game fireworks. We were out and about during a busy party street scene that occurs on the second Saturday of every month. We drove back to the house in a late night rush hour.

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Photos

Olive Oil tasting
St Helena Olive Oil Company

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Catchy title
Enjoyed reading your blog.