More Wine

Five years ago, I turned 50. Of all the places in this whole wide amazing world to celebrate that milestone, I picked the Napa Valley in California. I figured what's better than drinking really good wine all day on your half century birthday? I think it was a good choice. I fell in love with the place despite having been there twice before. I got an appreciation of the place way over and above my first two visits.

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.

Frog's Leap Winery's historic barn. Rutherford, CA.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one. 

When I was sampling chardonnay and some reds over at Grgich Hills, our host asked me where else we were headed and we mentioned we were going to give pinot noir a chance over in the Sonoma and Russian River Valleys. I then let slip out that I'd never had a pinot that I liked. I find them too watery. No finish at all. Disappear from my palate as soon as they are gone from my mouth.

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.

Landmark Vineyards: Their hospitality center in the old hop kilns (top) and what we sampled (bottom).

We picked Landmark for a reason besides food and wine. We picked them because the tasting was in an old hop kiln, a throwback building to when the Russian River Valley was a major source of hop growing to flavor and preserve beer. The stone kilns, which date from 1905 and were built in just 40 days are likely the best and only variety of this building type still standing in the area of California north of San Francisco that used to be hop country. We got there a little earlier than our tasting (which turned out to be just us) and asked if we could take a walk around the kilns and got a quick personal tour out of our visit, which was awesome to receive as a bonus experience.

Landmark moved into the property in 2016 but there is still a lot of memorabilia from the farming days in addition to the actual kilns themselves. The hop farming endeavor at this property was a full-service business. They even made their own sacks to transport the hops on the sewing machines that are still stored down in the lowest level of the kiln. We came to Napa, Sonoma and the Russian River Valleys to taste wine, but I'm never above (or below is maybe a better word) squeezing in a little beer history.

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.

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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The Wineries

We visited the following wineries in California on this trip. I'd recommend them all and for totally different reasons. There are at least two of these that I will return to the next time I'm in the area.

Clif Family Winery, Saint Helena 

We stopped at Clif Family on the way up the Napa Valley on our first day in the area. We went so that we could grab some lunch at their awesome, on-site food truck (which we did) and so that I could taste some of their chardonnay that I think was really amazing from our visit in 2018 (which I did not). Everybody we met at Clif Family was amazing. They were all super helpful and connected with us in a way that made us feel welcomed and like we should buy a bottle or two of their wine. We actually bought 12: 11 sauvignon blanc and 1 rose. Our second visit on this trip was two days later. We've now been to this winery three times and have never had a tasting. Next time...

Grgich Hills Estate, Rutherford

The first of our two 10 a.m. wine tastings on this trip. Grgich Hills is steeped in so much Napa Valley history through the Judgment of Paris that it's a must visit. We did it on our second serious trip to Napa (my first two trips to Napa were not serious wine visits). The service and the quality of the wines is top notch here. I'd go back in a second although we probably won't on our next visit necessarily. The patio out in front of the winery right along Route 29 feels like it's a long, long way off the road that is one of the two main thoroughfares up the Valley. No bottles bought here, but I could have. The Yountville Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon was incredible. It was also $225 a bottle. 

Landmark Vineyards, Healdsburg

Landmark was the only vineyard we visited where the quality of the chardonnay was not the primary reason for our visit. It was all about the sensory tasting experience and the old hop kiln building. Having said that, both the chardonnays and the pinot noirs at Landmark were really good. They presented me the first pinot I've ever tasted that I liked a lot. Their property is gorgeous and historic and the service was so relatable. I could have bought wine here but the price point was too steep for me. I got better cheaper elsewhere. Most all of Landmark's grapes are contract grown elsewhere. No objections to that considering the quality of the wine.

Patz & Hall, Sonoma

Quite simply, my favorite winery visit ever. I will visit again. Somehow, someway, I'll get back here. Patz & Hall grows grapes on their property which they have owned for 7 years (the same length of time as Landmark) but like Landmark uses contract grown grapes for their wines. Before this trip, I would have looked down my nose at making wine from grapes grown elsewhere. Not now. I bought three bottles of chardonnay and three bottles of pinot noir here. I can't wait to get that chardonnay in a glass at home.

Frog's Leap Winery, Rutherford

Of all the places we visited, honestly Frog's Leap was the only place that had customer service that was not impeccable. Every other place made us feel special and welcome and like they were doing us a favor with each wine pour. They were engaged and talked to us and listened to us. Frog's Leap did not. Having said that, we bought six bottles here: 4 sauvignon blanc and two zinfandel. The $75 off deal I got from my Amex on this one was a tipping point. I couldn't not buy with a $75 discount, right? Their wines are really good. And their property is spectacular. The gardens are gorgeous. I'd skip based on the service. There may be more online shopping but no more visits, probably.

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Wine

The first time I visited the Napa Valley was in 1998. I went alone; stayed at a brewery in Calistoga for about $35 per night; drank no wine; but had plenty of beer. I was really there to visit the Michael Graves-designed Clos Pegase Winery and the Fernau and Hartmann-designed Napa Valley Museum because visiting buildings is what I did with my vacations 20 years ago.

The second time I visited the Napa Valley was 10 years later. I went with someone who I thought loved me; I stayed outside the Valley in Sonoma; found out I liked chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon; and got food poisoning. Needless to say, my first trip was better than my second. In the end, I survived.

Now it's 2018 and I've just finished my third trip to the Napa Valley (something about years ending in "8" I guess). This year, I went with my wife whom I am very much in love with (and who I know loves me); stayed in the actual town of Napa; and came to not just drink wine but find out if I really love wine. This time, I tried to do it right from start to finish.

But before we start talking about 2018, let's talk some history.

Once upon a time in this world (like in the early 1970s), nobody who really knew anything about wine thought much about California. In fact, when anything other than some sort of cheap table wine was desired, nobody really thought about any other place other than France. Sure, people in California had been making wine at that point for over 100 years (if you include the somewhat reduced output during that dark period in our history called Prohibition) but if you wanted a really really good bottle of wine in the late 60s or early 70s for a special occasion, most people who knew thought about appellations or premier crus or burgundy or bordeaux.

About that same time, there were some winemakers setting up shop in the Napa Valley who were aspiring to make something different than the table wine or fortified wine most California growers were cranking out at that point. Some of these vintners patterned their product after French wines; others were trying anything and everything that would not be tried in France (or anywhere else) to get a superior product. In other words, not competing against anyone other than themselves.

Some of these wines started to attract the attention of a few people outside the United States. One of these people was Steven Spurrier (not the football coach), a British wine merchant living in Paris who was still trying to figure out what to do with his life while living off his inheritance. Owning a wine shop that also conducted wine appreciation classes seemed to Steve I guess to be an appropriate way to spend his time. At least until something better came along.

Then Steve Spurrier had an idea: why not conduct an independent blind taste testing of California and French wines tied in with the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence? His thought was that this might provide some buzz about his own business and enhance his status a bit while also giving some credence to his own idea that wines being made in California weren't half bad sometimes. Not French. Just not half bad.

The blind taste test was held on May 24, 1976 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris. It was an event that was about as un-buzzworthy as you could get since most people assumed the French wines would wipe the floor with the new world wines. It was so un-notable from a coverage standpoint that only one journalist (George Taber from Time Magazine) even bothered to show up to cover it. After the fact, the event became known as The Judgment of Paris, a reference to the choice the Trojan man, Paris, made that led to the Trojan War. Of course, the event only acquired a name after the fact because the unexpected happened: the American wines won and turned the wine world upside down.

Chardonnay, cabernet, cabernet, cabernet. At Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.

I like wine. Before this year's trip to Napa I'd have a hard time saying I loved it which was exactly the point of going back. Since my last trip there in 2008, I've tried many different kinds of wines and I can clearly say that I tend to gravitate towards wines that carry a lot of flavor, preferably with a good amount of acidity. But through all the glasses and cups and whatever else I've drank wine out of in the last 10 years, I've only really loved one wine and that was made in the basement of an old firehouse in Pittsburgh. It was a zinfandel made with California grapes and I loved it as soon as I tasted it. I wanted more of that same experience this year.

Before we really get this post rolling, let me also say that I'm probably never going to be a wine guy in the sense of someone with a sophisticated palate that can articulate all the strange flavors that wine experts and literature list off. I will never understand how a winemaker would want someone talking about the results of their labors tasting like wet stone or old leather or fresh mown hay or something like that. My sense of taste and smell are poor. All I'm likely to be able to describe in this blog post or any other forum is big picture concepts or familiar tastes like spice or acidity or apples or cherries or something like that. On the grapes side, I think I've had enough to know that I like chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel above everything else I've had. Just explaining so you know where I'm coming from.

So we had a plan to go drink wine, we found a hotel and booked a flight. Now what? How the heck do you pick a winery, let alone three or four per day, in Napa Valley? I mean there are only 400 or so to choose from and that doesn't even include the 200 or so that are in the neighboring Sonoma Valley. You clearly can't choose based on the recommendations of the wineries themselves because they all seem to think they are good. This to me seemed to be the first challenge of a long weekend tasting wine. Without the right selections, there would be no chance of finding something I loved.

To make things worse for us, we were told over and over again at the places we ended up visiting that the best wine is the one you like. There is no one single best wine. You have to go find the ones you like that are the best for your palate. This would take a multi-pronged approach to solve this problem. Throwing a dart at 600 wineries clearly wasn't going to work.

The Greeter. Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.

Back to Paris
We decided the backbone of our 2018 wine experience would be the 1976 Judgment of Paris. Sure, it was 42 years ago but we thought why not just pick the two winners of that contest as the first winery in each of our two full days in the Valley. That meant Chateau Montelena one day (they won the white category in the 1976 tasting) and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (which won the red category) on the other. Both wineries still exist today; why not give them a shot. Both turned out to be excellent choices but the differences between the two were striking.

Both wineries can trace their roots to men who arrived in the Napa Valley in 1968. Warren Winiarski moved his wife and kids to the Valley that year and two years later bought a 44 acre lot next to a parcel of land used for growing grapes after tasting the wine those same grapes produced. Jim Barrett bought into a property in Calistoga at the north end of the Valley the same year Winiarski moved his family. Barrett's purchase included an intact winery surrounding an historic 1888 home. Winiarski was a winemaker; Barrett was a lawyer who hired a winemaker to work his land. Both wineries began producing wine in 1972 and both had two bottles of their wine produced the following year entered into the Judgment of Paris. And, of course, both won.

Since that time, Chateau Montelena (its name is a smushing together of Mount St. Helena which can be seen from the still standing home) has remained in the Barrett family, which uses the chateau at the center of the property as their welcome center and tasting facility. Further down the Napa Valley, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars has been sold to The Altria Group, a tobacco company that obviously dabbles in other things; their hospitality center is brand new and cutting edge, a facility that is every bit as gorgeous as Chateau Montelena's without maybe having anywhere near as much character.

Chateau Montelena's historic house.

We decided to go all in at each of these places and book what we saw as a top end tasting experience. That got us a taste of chardonnay and three or four tastes of each winery's signature cabernet, although honestly we got a little extra taste or two at both places. I thought both wineries served us incredible wines. Appropriately enough I thought the best we were served at Chateau Montelena was their chardonnay and the tops at Stag's Leap was one of their cabernets, although both impressed me with some of their other wines too.

At Chateau Montelena we learned that the fruit and acid in their chardonnay is a result of them not using malolactic fermentation, a process that turns the malic acid (which I guess I love) to lactic acid which produces a fatty or buttery taste on the wine (which I don't necessarily care for). I also learned (and maybe much to my chagrin) that I probably prefer lower alcohol wines like the kind Chateau Montelena produces in the style of the great French houses. We managed to get on a four person tasting which also significantly improved the quality of the tasting experience. 

At Stag's Leap we had probably the best cabernet we had on the entire trip, a small taste of the not-available-for-purchase-except-to-members (we are not members) S.L.V. Block 1. We also had one of those I-don't-get-why-people-like-wine-sometimes moments. The last glass we had on our tasting was a 2015 CASK 23 cabernet, a wine that is only made by the vineyard on years when there is sufficient fruit of the best quality. I got the impression that this is one of the most exclusive wines Stag's Leap produces. One of the tasting notes for this particular wine was "cigar box". Now I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a mark of pride or something but that's exactly what it tasted like. And pretty much nothing else. If there's one thing I don't get about wine it's why people want to drink things that taste like the insides of cigar boxes. We moved on. Satisfied but still puzzled about that last one.

Young zinfandel grapes, Storybook Mountain Vineyards. 

Quest for Zinfandel
With chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon sufficiently (and likely excellently) covered in my view by the two Judgment of Paris champions, we needed to seek out a spot that specialized in the grapes that made up the best wine I had prior to June 2018, zinfandel. While there are generalist wineries up and down the Napa Valley that cover a range of grapes and tons and tons that specialize in the super popular chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel represents a minority crop in the area. I wanted to find a vineyard that treated zin like the special and beloved wine that it can be.

Right or wrong, I turned to an internet search engine and typed "best zinfandel napa valley". I swear this was a well intentioned search but all things considered this was probably not the way to go, even if most of the results came up with the exact same name over and over again. Considering the mantra that the best wine is the one that you like best, I'm not going to discourage you from visiting anywhere in the Napa Valley based on my experience so I'm not naming names of the places that I was not impressed with. I'm also very cognizant of the fact that I was chasing a ghost of sorts having already supped what I considered to be a masterful zinfandel. Yes...from Pittsburgh.

Overall, where the internet search engine steered us was not bad. The atmosphere was pleasant enough and the wine was good enough I guess. It just didn't make me want to buy bottles of the stuff or really any at all. Considering this was supposed to be a zin place, I asked for another zinfandel recommendation on my way out and got the exact same name that I would get from Chateau Montelena the very next morning: Storybook Mountain Vineyards.

Mount St. Helena seen from the Storybook property with a field of zinfandel in the foreground.

Storybook was probably the smallest winery we visited on our long weekend trip and it for sure had the best story. The former Grimm (Brothers) Vineyards and Wine Vaults on the eastern side of the Mayacamas Mountains (the Napa Valley is formed by the Mayacamas range to the west and the Vaca Mountains on the east side) was purchased by Jerry and Ingrid Seps in 1976. They've held it ever since. Jerry even drove by us on our way out of the property and waved. And I didn't add the Brothers in parentheses to be cheeky; the original winery was actually owned by two brothers Grimm. Hence the Storybook name today.

The original winery dates from the 1880s, including the caves, which were blasted out by Chinese immigrant labor more than 125 years ago. You'll end up tasting in those caves if you visit. Storybook is almost completely a family affair; it's run by the Seps family and cared for by the sons and nephews of Mexican laborers brought to the property by Jerry just after he bought the property and needed some help harvesting. They are a true estate vineyard, meaning the grapes used in their wine is farmed on the same property and they let no more than 40 minutes elapse from the picking to the fermentation tank. That's pretty incredible considering when I say the two families run the place I mean there's no outside labor brought in for the harvest. Our guide Pam told us the wine was made with love; she appears to be right. We didn't see quite this much personal care anywhere else.

By the way, there's a lot to be said for the hard work and labor of immigrants. Just saying...

The mountain slopes at Storybook are planted carefully, almost like a science experiment. Grape varieties aren't forced to grow in spots where they don't grown best. That's the primary reason the focus at the vineyard is zinfandel, because that's what grows best there. We had some good zins in the caves of Storybook and if we had been traveling locally, I likely would have come away with a bottle at the super reasonable price set by Jerry Seps. I didn't think it was worth shipping. Great story; great people. I'm sure it's worth a visit. Our palates just didn't fit the wine quite perfectly enough.

Bunny Foo Foo. Lawrence Argent, artist. HALL Wines, St. Helena.

More than Wine
Now all this wine drinking can get a fella a little tipsy, and like the typical non-wine person I am, I just refuse to spit in the spit buckets. If wine enters my mouth, it gets drunk. I'm not wasting sips of wine that cost more than $150 a bottle, even if it tastes like cigar boxes. So considering my refusal to spit, we needed a method to pace my intake (for me) and break the boredom of watching me drink wine (for my non-drinking and graciously designated driver-ing wife). Fortunately there are a number of vineyards that offer more than wine.

For our homage to the 1976 Judgment of Paris, we deliberately chose tastings that lasted longer than it took to just swallow five or six quarter-full glasses of wine. These involved a tour around the historic chateau in Calistoga and a look inside the caves at Stag's Leap. We also got an almost two hour stop at Storybook which got the wine I had earlier in that day nicely out of my system. This is a good way to introduce pace into your day. There are other more interesting ways as well.

There are a number of wineries in the Valley that farm olives as well as wine; a few that have on-site bocce or (depending on how French you want to be) pétanque courts; and some that have art galleries of varying quality. You can also grab a bite to eat at some wineries and by this I mean a full meal, not a cheese board with a tasting. We chose a number of wineries on a non-wine basis to break up our day, although we ended up ditching pétanque (I am wanting to be quite French today) and olives in favor of Storybook. The results of our non-wine based wine selections were, shall we say, of varying quality. 

Food from Bruschetteria Food Truck alongside a glass of Clif Family Chardonnay.

You can spend a lot of money eating in the Napa Valley, and I don't mean by getting a $300 plus (without wine or supplements for special orders) per person prix fixe meal at Thomas Keller's famous French Laundry restaurant. There are some seriously expensive plates of food available at some wineries. We passed on all of these, choosing something way more casual than all the set price menus that we found something objectionable about. And by way more casual, I mean like food truck casual, courtesy of the Bruschetteria Food Truck on the Clif Family winery property. Yes, the main dishes are, as the name suggests, bruschettas, but like pizza sized pieces of bread loaded with mushrooms or brisket and plenty of cheese and herbs. This was one of the best meals we had on our ten day jaunt through Napa and all the way to Portland, Oregon. Seriously good stuff. The Clif Family (yes, the same family that makes the bars) chardonnay was pretty darned tasty too.

We also picked a couple of wineries that had art galleries. We love looking at and collecting art and figured this would be a great way to slow down the day, maybe with a small glass of wine to sip over a 30 to 45 minute stroll through a gallery or garden. I said slow down, not cut out entirely. We chose HALL Wines in St. Helena as one of two art-plus-wine stops. HALL has a world class collection of sculpture spread around its property and offers a guided tour plus a tasting after. Sounded great except for the 100 plus degree temperature which turned our well-planned detour into a standard tasting. 

The good news about HALL was that we managed to find a cabernet sauvignon (their almost lowest priced Ellie's) that I really liked despite the points-focused narrative we got from our guide. HALL seems obsessively focused on points assigned to their wines by third parties, typically Wine Spectator magazine, which came up with the system to apply what seems like an objective rating system for wine. As I've mentioned already, the best wine for you is the one you think tastes best, not the one someone else (or a magazine) thinks tastes best. At HALL, I far preferred their 95 point Ellie's to their 98 point Kathryn Hall. Drink the wine that tastes good to you, people.

Our other art gallery / winery pick? Not so successful. In fact, I'd probably never go back for the wine, although I did enjoy some of the art. Again, I'm refusing to name names when I've disapproved of what I've had to drink. There may be some folks out there who love this stuff. There also may be someone (God forbid) who might be basing their own decisions on where to taste based on reading this blog post. I'm even refusing to say the name of the town where we found it.

HALL Wines offerings, including the excellent (to me) Ellie's cabernet sauvignon in the foreground.

That's a lot of writing about wine. Let's bring this thing to a close shall we. 

The point of this trip was to find some wine that I loved. I'm not saying that I would have given up on wine if I hadn't found at least something better than palatable but I might have ended up buying a lot more zinfandel from Pittsburgh and I might never have deliberately visited another winery I wasn't familiar with ever again. Our method of choosing wineries was perhaps key to finding some great wine; pick the wrong ones and you could reasonably blame it on the planner (me) for picking some places that weren't that good. So did that work?

I think in the end, our method worked. We got some hits and we got some misses. But the real point of the trip to find some wine that I loved was satisfied. I ended up shipping back 20 bottles of wine for myself (16 chardonnay and 4 cabernet sauvignon if you must know). Don't think that sounds like a lot? Some of the stuff is pretty darned expensive, although I didn't break the $100 a bottle barrier on any of my purchases. I only shipped three different types of wine back home and only bought at three wineries, meaning I have a lot of some of the same kinds of wine. More than anything else, this trip proved to me that I do, in fact, love some wine. Now Napa Valley is on my list of places to go back. Hey, a long weekend every couple of years couldn't hurt, right?

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How We Did It

As I hope comes through in the post above, finding wine in the Napa Valley is not difficult. All you really need is some form of transportation and a designated driver. Below is a list of all the wineries referenced in this post, listed in the order of our visit. Click on the name of the winery to access their website. If there is other information I think you need to know, I've included that next to the address.

A lot of wineries in the Napa Valley offer walk-in tastings for a fee. If you want something more deluxe than a couple of glasses of wine at a bar, I'd suggest making a reservation in advance. In fact, in some cases you may need a reservation to get in the door. If you've decided you really want to taste at a specific winery, I'd make a reservation. Some of these properties are packed with people. Don't like being tied down to a specific time? Pick just one reservation a day or something like that. Don't lose out on some place you really want to try because you refuse to schedule.

Chateau Montelena Winery, 1429 Tubbs Lane, Calistoga CA. We took The Barrett Dream tour here which got us the super private (four people) tasting referenced earlier in this post. The personal attention this tour offered was appreciated.

Storybook Mountain Vineyards, 3835 Highway 128, Calistoga, CA. Storybook is a reservations-only winery. Don't have a reservation? You might have to try talking your way in at the gate. No guarantees that works.

Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, 5766 Silverado Trail, Napa, CA. Note there are two vineyards in the Napa Valley with similar Stag's Leap names. We visited the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and not the Stags' Leap Winery. The latter did not win the Judgment of Paris in 1976. And yes, the apostrophes are correctly placed in each name. Apostrophes are important here.

Clif Family Winery, 709 Main Street, St. Helena, CA. Wonder where my advice about reservations came from? I wanted to taste at Clif Family and was told (just after noon) that they were sold out for the day. I settled for a glass of wine from the bar. Make reservations if a property is important, folks!

Hall Wines St. Helena, 401 St. Helena Highway South, St. Helena CA. Note that Hall has two properties: one in St. Helena and one in Rutherford. The one in St. Helena has the art collection.

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