Napa

A few weeks back, Mark and I were lucky to spend a long weekend together in Napa.  I was planning a work trip to our Palo Alto office and (not so coincidentally) Mark was planning a work trip to his San Francisco office, so we took advantage of our West Coast travel to plan a mini getaway.  The thing about planning a trip to Napa is that everyone has a recommendation for a great winery and a great restaurant.  It can be very overwhelming -- we had a list of dozens of wineries to hit in a three day trip.  So we took some recommendations but also forged our own path and had a great time in the process.

We stayed at the Carneros Inn, which was beautiful.  We had a little cottage, with a backyard fire pit and bath tub.  My favorite part of the cottage was the indoor shower that opened up to an outdoor shower (even if there were a bunch of little frogs in the shower).  I've added it to my mental list of dream house amenities.








Frogs


We got up bright and early on Friday to begin our Napa adventure. We bought a picnic lunch in the Market and off we went. We started with a tour at Mondavi.  It was a great tour about the history of Napa and the wine-making process.  It ended with a really helpful tasting demonstration.





Our tour guide


Stones mark the different grapes in a teaching vineyard


These will turn into red grapes when it is time to harvest


Looking out over the vineyard


Red wine in French oak barrels




We spent the rest of the day stopping at wineries along the Silverado Trail.  We hit four in total that day -- it was my limit -- anymore and I would have slept through dinner.  The best views were at Silverado, but the best wine was at Cliff Lede.  Cliff Lede is where we met Tom, the nicest and smartest wine guy we have ever met.  Mark and I both have a crush on him.  We pretend to call him just to say hi :) Although we received tons of recommendations, one thing no one told us was that you can't picnic at most of the wineries in Napa. Very few wineries have "picnic permits." We learned that just as we really needed some food to sop up all the wine we were drinking. So we ended up eating our picnic lunch in the car -- not exactly the way I imagined picnicing in the vineyards.

Views from Silverado Winery. The wine was just okay here. For one wine, the pourer said to me as he was walking away "You'll get some red bell pepper in there." Huh? Okay...








Ridiculous palace at Darioush


On our second day, we stayed in Carneros, sampling lots on Pinot Noir.  We also did a sparkling wine tour at Domaine Carneros, which is located in a ridiculous looking "faux chateau".  In the afternoon, we tried to do a little window shopping, but were disappointed that Napa didn't have the quant downtown area we expected.  At the rate we were buying wine, it was probably better off that there were no other shopping temptations.  I did have my first fish tacos though, so that was exciting.

The gardens at Etude were among our favorites.


















Steel barrels on our sparkling wine tour at Domaine.


Mark was ready for bubbles.








The "faux chateau", designed to look like the original Tattingier chateau



That night, we had dinner at the Restaurant at Meadowood. We tried to get a reservation at French laundry, but we were too late, so we "settled" for Meadowood, the only other restaurant with three Michelin stars. We opted for the five course tasting menu (the nine-course was recommended "to get the full Chef Chris experience"). Some courses were better than other and some were just a-mah-zing.

Our flight on Sunday was not until 11pm, so we really needed to stretch the day.  First up -- massages, of course :)  Followed by an amazing breakfast overlooking Carneros (yummy Papa Joe's eggs in a hole).




Since we had the time, decided to take the long way back to San Francisco.  We drove through Sonoma, stopping at a few more wineries.  I am so glad that we did because I think I liked Sonoma better than Napa.  It was more lush and easier to navigate between wineries.  We stopped at B.R. Cohn and Landmark.  B.R. Cohn is the manager of the Doobie Brothers, so the theme of the winery is rock and roll and motorcycles. We bought a bottle of wine at Landmark and sat in their gardens eating wine and cheese and sipping rose.  Not a bad way to kill time.



Car wines at B.R. Cohn


Wine and cheese at Landmark












After Landmark, we were off to Route 1 to take the coastal highway down to SF.  This was Mark's very brilliant idea. All I can say is wow, what an amazing drive. The landscape was so varied, the views were so breathtaking, the air smelled so sweet and the road was SO SCARY. Seriously, so freaky -- thank you Mark for driving. I would have literally had a nervous breakdown on the side of the road if I was driving.











They are not kidding.








Love this one of Mark climbing back up






And then we hit SF.  The air did not smell as sweet.


We brillianty decided to stop at a scenic overlook and watched as we drove past hundreds of cars trying to get on the freeway we just exited. It ended up taking us an hour to get back on the freeway...good thing we had an 11pm flight.






Meanwhile, back on the Atlantic, a certain little girl hardly knew we were gone.  She spent a few days in Long Beach and a few days in the City with Bammie, Pa and Kelly.  Each day when I called to check in, I asked whether she asked for me and the answer was a consistent "no, gotta run, Lyla wants to go down the waterslide."  It's good to know that I'm missed :)  But seriously, it's so comforting to know that Mark and I can sneak away for a few days and not worry that Lyla will miss us.  But boy, did we miss her.