That 2018 trip had another purpose besides just celebrating me being alive for five decades: I wanted to see if I really loved wine, so we were serious about the research we did to find at least one or two well-regarded wineries that had been producing a top-quality product for some time. Now don't get me wrong here, I knew I liked wine, but I'd been a bit directionless in my sampling. I'd never really gotten some proper instruction and really understood what I was drinking. I was looking for LOVE, not like.
That trip worked. I found two chardonnays and one cabernet that I liked and had some shipped back. In the five years since, I've grown to love chardonnay above most other wines.
We loved that trip to Napa so much that we scheduled another just two years later. But drinking wine and eating food with other people in an enclosed, indoor space wasn't such a smart idea in the summer of 2020, so we had to end up kicking that trip down the road a bit. To this year.
In the five years since my last Napa trip, I've discovered wine that I love while traveling that is NOT chardonnay. I got into vinho verde in Portugal in the fall of 2021 and fell in love with Austria's grüner veltliner during a pre-Christmas visit last year. But they don't produce either of those wines in California so when it came time to do some research as to where to go this year, I focused on wineries that produced well-regarded chardonnays. The only reason I mention other wines that I love is that I believe my mind has been opened (by travel) to other possibilities.
We set this up to be an amazing chardonnay pilgrimage. And of course, it ended up being something completely different. Well, mostly.
Finishing Paris
Five years ago, we centered our wine tasting in Napa around the Judgment of Paris, the 1976 taste test in Paris that turned the wine world on its head when a series of wine experts in a blind taste test picked a California chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon over their French counterparts. That meant we visited Chateau Montelena (which won the Paris tasting with their chardonnay) and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (which won with their cabernet). I found chardonnays at both those wineries in 2018 that I love.
One of the protagonists in the Judgment of Paris was Miljenko (Mike) Grgich. He was the man who made the winning chardonnay for Chateau Montelena. Shortly after that contest, he decided to leave Chateau Montelena to start his own shop, a place he called Grgich Hills Estate. And it's still around today. As is Mike, who turned 100(!!!) this year. We made Grgich Hills the first scheduled stop of this wine trip.
My intent in this post is not to give a blow-by-blow of the wines we tasted. I didn't keep track of all that and I'm not qualified to relay tasting notes with any sort of accuracy. But I'll say two things about our visit to Grgich Hills. Although before I get to that, I will say that they do make some very good wines at Grgich Hills. I found their zinfandel and petite syrah (which I find hard to find) both very good but both priced at a level that was more than I was prepared to pay.
So...those two things...
First, 10 a.m. wine tastings are just awesome. I was a little skeptical. Maybe it was too early. Maybe it would start the day off on the wrong foot. I mean it's not even day drinking; it's morning drinking. Any misgivings evaporated quickly after the first taste. The two places we picked (Grgich Hills and Patz & Hall) were fantastic. There is nothing like being served multiple tastes of amazing-tasting wine in an idyllic environment in the cool California morning. I'm all in!
Second, these places know how to take care of you. Sure, there's the menu of tastings. Four. Five. Whatever it is that you've bought. But then there's a bonus tasting or maybe two. They make you feel so special when you get more tastings beyond the bonus tastings. "Is there anything else you would like to try?" Umm...yeah! What else you got??
Talk to your host. Talk about wine. Tell him or her what you like or are curious about. They might just have something that you might be interested in. You paid for all this, by the way, so get it. Accept all the bonus pours. They just have this thing down to an art. And they did it really well at Grgich Hills.
Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir
OK, so truth be told here, Grgich Hills was NOT our first wine stop on this trip. That honor belonged to Clif Family Winery, which we stopped at for lunch after perhaps an earlier than originally planned departure from where we were staying near Yosemite National Park. Clif was actually a repeat visit; we'd been there for lunch one day in 2020 and I had what I remembered as a delicious chardonnay while I ate wings and loaded bruschetta from the food truck (Bruschetteria, if you must know) that parks on property at Clif. I had to get another glass of that wine as my first taste of vino in Napa.
Didn't happen. Clif didn't have chardonnay available by the glass when we stopped there. They offered a viognier and a sauvignon blanc. Now, I'd never had a viognier but I knew I didn't care for sauvignon blanc all that much so I tried the viognier which I didn't particularly like. Not enough flavor. So I acquiesced and tried the sauvignon blanc.
This is why we travel and try new things, folks. I don't drink sauvignon blanc, but I liked this wine. I mean I really liked it. Two days later, we went back to Clif and had a second glass because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Then I bought 11 bottles of the stuff. I mean, it is really, really good. I haven't cracked a bottle since I got back home and had it deposited on my doorstep, but I will soon. Sauvignon blanc. Who knew this would happen?
Look, I know it's just wine. But sometimes wine makes life better.
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| Frog's Leap Winery's historic barn. Rutherford, CA. |
His response: "You've been drinking the wrong pinots."
About a day later, I was a believer.
We tried three or four pinot noirs at Landmark Vineyards in Healdsburg and maybe as many as five (lost count...) the next day at Patz & Hall in Sonoma. These are some seriously good wines. And so much body and finish. Just wow! I'd never tasted pinot noir like this before. At Patz & Hall, they kept bringing them, each one better than the last (bonus pours, I'm telling you...). I bought three bottles of the Sanchietti pinot from Patz & Hall. It blew me away it was so good. I can't wait to open one of those bottles when they get here.
Yes, they are not here at home more than six weeks after we were at Patz & Hall. They refuse to ship in hot weather. I'm OK with that. I can wait, even though I just wrote that I can't.
Our well-planned chardonnay pilgrimage had me buying bottles of two wine varietals I'd never bought for myself ever. Go figure! I did buy more sauvignon blanc also, by the way. Frog's Leap ages theirs in concrete and the stuff tastes like the best tasting grapefruit juice I've never had. Just incredible stuff. All told, I came home followed by 15 bottles of sauvignon blanc.
Wine and Food
If there was a disappointment in our wine tasting itinerary this year, it was in the number of places that offered reasonably priced food and wine pairing tastings. In 2020, there seemed to be a ton of these and we had lined up an agenda that featured a series of light snacks all over the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. This year, it was way more difficult to find these sorts of things. Full meals? Sure. But tastings with snacks and particularly lunch? Not so much. I'm blaming COVID.
I do think that it's important for me to come back to this whole food-with-wine-makes-both-things-better idea. I think it's important to do that because I'm still not all that convinced that wine shouldn't be just savored by itself so you can taste the pure and unadulterated taste of the grapes and the terroir. This year we gave this a shot one more time at Landmark Vineyards in Healdsburg, which turned out to be a sort of science lab of food and wine pairings. Aged cheese. Truffle popcorn. Salt. Lemon and salt. Apple and salt. Onion jam. Fruit jam. Tea with jam. There may have been others.
I got two things out of this exercise. First, apple with chardonnay kills the chardonnay and lemon with chardonnay brightens it up. I'm not likely to ever do apple or lemon with chardonnay, although lemon cake and chardonnay sounds like a possibility. Second, red jam with pinot noir is just amazing. I will definitely be setting up something somewhere down the line with that combination. We discovered chocolate and port two years ago in Porto. Add red jam and pinot noir to that list.
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| Landmark Vineyards: Their hospitality center in the old hop kilns (top) and what we sampled (bottom). |
Chardonnay Is Still King
Remember that well-planned chardonnay quest we thought this trip to wine country was going to be? Well, we did get some excellent chardonnay out of the trip, after all.
I used to think I should love red wine. I've dabbled in trysts with some zinfandel and (on this trip) pinot noirs that I think were and are amazing. But given a choice in some restaurant somewhere and especially in the summer, I'm opting for white wine. And the king of all white wine for as long as I've been drinking wine with any sort of regularity (over the last 10 years, let's say...) is chardonnay. At least it is for me. Maybe it's too simple. I like it. And I've loved it more often than I loved other wines.
So on this trip, I made sure (with the possible exception of Landmark because there were other priorities driving that visit) that everywhere we went had made a chardonnay that was well-regarded by some website or critic that I found I could have some respect for. That led us to Clif, that led us to Grgich Hills, that led us to Frog's Leap and it led us to Patz & Hall.
Patz & Hall was my favorite winery on this trip. If I lived remotely close to Sonoma, I'd join their wine club and make sure I showed up at their property for a lot of 10 a.m. wine tastings. Their property is gorgeous. Their service was immaculate. And I loved their wine the best. I was shocked at my purchase of some pinot noir from Patz & Hall. I know I've already mentioned that.
They also served me a chardonnay that I sipped and just said "oh, that's really good".
One of the things I loved about Patz & Hall was the way the wines kept coming and each one seemed to be better than the last. It happened with their pinots and it happened with their chardonnays. Bonus pours upon bonus pours, trying to get me something that would move me. Their Kent Ritchie chardonnay moved me in a way that no wine has moved me in a long time. It was so full of flavor and smooth. It reminded me why I love chardonnay the best. I can't wait for them to deliver those bottles to me so I can taste that wine again. There may be some shopping in the future at Patz & Hall.
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| Happiness is a 10 a.m. wine tasting. At Grgich Hills. |
I don't know when we'll get back to the Napa Valley. Or the Sonoma or Russian River Valleys for that matter. But all three of those places together are absolutely one of my happiest places on Earth. It's not all to do with the wine, but the wine is certainly a big reason. Our 2018 trip out that way was a bit hit and miss. We found some places we liked and we struck out with other wineries. This time we really tried to make every stop at a place that concentrated on what they are making as top-quality examples of their craft and I think we got exactly what we were looking for. Research helps sometimes. There was nothing accidental about any of the wine I drank on this trip.
Five years ago, I went to Napa to find out if could find a wine that I loved. This time around, I found at least five wines that I love because I had 24 bottles of that many different wines shipped home. I am still shocked that more than half of those bottles were sauvignon blanc. Sometimes you don't get what you want and expect. Sometimes you get more than that.
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