Napa Valley

We thought Napa Valley would be miles of vineyards (which it was, often as far as our eyes could see) and a winery every now and then.  Boy were we wrong!  How about a winery every 100 yards?  Literally, there are over 400 in this area.  They range from small, no frills to a full size castle.  And well-known names like Sutter’s Home, Robert Mondavi, Beringer to boutique names like St. Clements, Luna, Etude.  With so many to choose from, the difficult part was deciding which wineries to stop at. 

We used one of our lifelines and phoned-a-friend (son Matt) on some suggestions the night before.  He said it was hard to say, having never been here, but gave us several names and we happen to drive past one of them on our way to the town of Napa.  So our first stop was Larson Winery.  We probably would have never stopped here because there was nothing to catch our attention, like beautiful grounds or impressive buildings.  Just a little sign with their name and an arrow pointing down a long drive.  We hit the jackpot here.  It was the perfect place to start.  We were the only ones there and had Marvin’s undivided attention.  He was a wealth of information.  It was like having our own personal “Wine for Dummies”, (just how do they get those grape vines to grow horizontally?) which we are when it comes to the juice of fermented grapes.  The grounds were very casual, with picnic tables, corn hole, and a horseshoe pit.  As we stopped at other vineyards, we noticed their outdoor spaces too encourage you to take your time and relax.  Some did it with manicured lawns, bocce ball courts, or blooming gardens.  Larson’s was like a backyard picnic.

You cannot purchase Larson’s wine in any store or have it served in any restaurant.  It is only available online and at their vineyard.  Marvin said they make about 4,000 cases a year.  By comparison, a wine that you can buy on the grocery store shelf will make over a million cases a year.  I don’t understand how these small places survive.  Marvin explained they get a lot of tour buses, but even the tour companies have to choose which of the 400 wineries they are going to stop at.  He did point out that with the intense competition, if you don’t produce good wine, you are not going to survive in the Valley.

  We thought we should go to the actual town of Napa, but all we did there was fill up the car.  We did learn that Napa is a little more uppity, Sonoma a little more relaxed.

You could spend a whole day just going to vineyards of famous people – Madonna, Francis Ford Coppola, Annika Sorenstam.  We did pull in to Mario Andretti’s place.  It had a nice Tuscan feel.

Every winery charges a fee for their wine tasting, except Sutter’s Home.  This was wasted on me, so we tended to stop where there was something to see and not just taste wine.  These criteria led us to the Beringer Vineyard.  Here we go again, but they have an “oldest” claim – the oldest continuously operating winery in California.  Two brothers from Germany started the winery in 1876.  They built a replica of their boyhood home in Germany here in Napa.  You could spend an afternoon at this house and the grounds.  The Beringers age their wine in barrels in underground tunnels where the temperature is a constant 58 degrees.  This is the European traditional way to age and mature wine.

And I can’t say anymore that we don’t go into art galleries because the Peju winery had a small gallery along with a good storyboard explanation of their wine making process.

Our last stop of the day was Castello di Amorosa – the Castle Winery.  It is an authentic Tuscan castle with a drawbridge, moat, dungeon, and chapel.  The wine tasting fee here included a tour of the castle, which I wanted to see.  

We walked out of the castle and said our favorites were our first and last stops!

Full-bodied, robust, aromatic. . . For someone that doesn’t even LIKE wine, I’m getting the lingo of Napa Valley down pat. 

On the drive back to our campground we passed a California Highway Patrol officer on his motorcycle which made me think of Ponch from the TV show CHIPS.  We also saw a sign for “The California Old Faithful” geyser.  Since Old Faithful in Yellowstone is on our must see list, we thought we’ll see this one, too.  The $14 fee (each) changed our mind!

Pictures today are: entrance to Larson Winery; several outside that winery; an example of the opposite of Larson’s; Mario Andretti vineyard; the grounds of the Peju winery; grounds of Sutter’s Home winery; the Beringer home; the Castello di Amorosa; inside the Great Hall of the castle; an aging barrel in the castle; a grove of grapes destined to become Cabernet Sauvignon.