The Longest Day: Chronicle Part 7

Thursday March 4th

Happy Birthday Kristen!!

Today was the day. Finally! Ryan and I woke up to a brilliantly sunny day in Napa, ready and raring to go for a FULL day of winery visiting, tasting, and fun. We hopped out of bed nice and early (ok, not too early) to get a jump on the day. We had a great breakfast, again, in the front room of the main house. Today was a really delicious egg, swiss, and mushroom dish with some homestyle Italian seasoned potatoes. This was the first morning I actually felt hungry for breakfast all week, so maybe I am biased about how delicious today's food was over other days, but I definitely had seconds. It was a big day and I wanted to make sure I fueled up! So, with plenty of OJ, eggs, potatoes, fruit and yogurt digesting away, Ryan and I finalized our plan for the day. We had a lot to see, so we got ready and out the door by 10:30. In Napa, people are actually encouraged to start their tasting/drinking early. All of the wineries open around 10 and you'd be amazed at how many people were already out and about checking out all the wineries and tasting wine before we even arrived at our first place.

We took our 2 for 1 coupon from Castello di Amarosa's tasting last night and called ahead to make a reservation for their 11:30 am tour. They book up pretty quickly, as we were told, so that helped us organize our day a bit. We decided to start about 10 minutes down the road at Franciscan, one of my favorite wineries. I was introduced to their wine at The Ocean Grille via my brother, of course, and was excited to get in for a tasting. We had a coupon for there too (you should be sensing a pattern, here). We arrived around 10:45 and saddled up to the tasting bar. We were served by a very relaxed, almost "dude-like" gentleman who had lots of fun information about the area and the wines he served us. He let us each taste from different menus and share each other's glasses so that we both got to taste all of the wines available. (Don't worry all, I spit most of mine out as I agreed to be the driver today). I think my favorites were the Sauvignon Blanc and the Clos Reserve. Ryan really loved the Merlot and I think has discovered that Merlots are kind of his thing. Our guy threw us a few extra tastings in there, including, both of our favorite, the Port. It was an amazing end to the tasting - a nice full fruit flavor with a twist of brandy on the finish. Yum!

We kind of took our time in Franciscan, so when we were getting back in the car we decided to just head over to Castello di Amarosa instead of make any more stops along the way. There was an Olive Oil Company that was tempting us to come in and try some of their, I'm sure, delicious products - but we had to resist and get on the road. On our way, Ryan said, "Are you sure you want to do this tour? I mean, there are a lot of other places to see and, truthfully, I'm not really a 'castle' kind of guy." I laughed and said, “Yeah, I really want to see it and I have a feeling you're going to enjoy it more than you know.” We got to Castello di Amarosa around 11:15, which was perfect timing to check in and get some shots of the landscape and the castle. Pulling up the long driveway, I hear Ryan in the passenger seat say, "Ok, this is definitely cool. Let's get out and get some pictures!" So much for not being a “castle kind of guy…”

Alright, so let me give you a little story about this place. This guy named Dario grew up in San Francisco in the wine business. His great grandfather was a San Francisco wine pioneer and taught his family everything he knew. Dario, though, was raised as Darryl; that's right, Darryl. Growing up, he always had a love of wine and architecture. So, when he was a big boy, he went to Italy, wandered around, learned more about wine and architecture, then came back and decided to latch on to Napa’s 1970's break in the wine business. He opened up V. Sattui, named for his great grandfather Vittorio. He put all of his money into building, growing, and starting the winery, that there was nothing left for advertising or marketing when all was said and done. He started selling the wine solely out of his winery, never shipping a bottle to a store or a restaurant. He even made his family and employees park by the side of the road to make his winery look busy, until people started flooding in, wondering why this new little place was so popular. This became sort of a tradition, and to this day, he still only sells his wines out of the winery - you can't find his wines anywhere out in the wide world. Well, after many years of running V.Sattui, he decided he wanted to open a 2nd winery and this time, make it smaller and more like a Tuscan villa. He started importing materials from Italy to build this small villa, while he began growing the vines for the winery itself. 14 years later, he ended up constructing a 107 room Italian Renaissance castle, made from hand chipped stone (done on the property) and Italian imported brick. He hired Italian painters to hand paint murals on the walls and ceilings. He included a dungeon, a torture chamber, and a series of caves and cellars that provide year round stable natural temperatures of 50-60 degrees for barrel storage. Even with its size, it's still a smaller winery, producing only a selection of wines that can only be purchased, of course, on the property. He throws Renaissance dinners where everyone dresses up, eats with their hands, and jousts. And he's present every day, overseeing the production and distribution of his wine to the masses of people that come see his 2 wineries, ranked #1 and #2 most popular in Napa Valley. This is how a guy grows up and gets to change his name from Darryl to Dario. In case you were wondering. Love it.

Needless to say, we had a blast at Castello di Amarosa. Our tour guide, Christina, was hilarious and a bubbly bunch of energy. The place is immense and once all of the information really sinks in and you see it all for yourself, you can't help but be impressed with this guy. We even got to meet him! He came down through the tasting room and said "hi" on his way through. I, of course, was busy petting Lancelot, brother of Guinevere - the two castle cats hired to find mice, but are currently just in charge of lounging in front of large fires and keeping the hands of most tourists busy by garnering attention. I was a total sucker. We tasted from each of their wine lists, much the same as with Franciscan. I'm not big into Merlots, so I left those to Ryan - I stuck with the whites and the cabs. They had some really great picnic and dessert wines - best we'd tried yet. I kind of wish we could have kidnapped Christina to tour us through the rest of wine country - she was so full of fun and vibrance. You can tell that she really does love her job and the company for which she works - it makes you realize how much that can change your whole outlook on work itself.

After many more pictures, and a little more exploration on our own, we decided we needed to hit the road if we were going to do anything else today. We headed up the road past Sterling to August Briggs, who offer a FREE wine tasting! We were psyched for that, as well as the fact that it was a much smaller and lesser known winery. The drive up was beautiful, as the mustard grass everywhere looks so striking against the deep browns of the not yet bloomed vineyards. A picture stop was definitely in order after this next tasting. We pulled into August Briggs, whose parking lot was just as big as I expected - about 6 spots. We parked and walked into the very small front room. Ryan did most of the tasting here, as they had a few Chardonnays and a Merlot. I tasted a sip of each, but they are my least favorite grapes, so I just looked around and then tasted some of their other offerings. I took the opportunity to hydrate while Ryan learned more about the wines. Turns out, this was his favorite Chardonnay so far this trip! A shocking revelation and one I intend to keep in my back pocket for later use...

As promised, we stopped just up the road from August Briggs for a little picture taking. It was so scenic and amazing along this back road; it really reminded me of the North Country and how breathtaking all of that untapped natural beauty can really be. Ryan got up close and personal with a slew of honeybees he kind of stumbled into, actually managing to capture one in a photo. It's been an effort on his part to get up close shots of small insects, like bees and butterflies, while on this trip. These were the first honeybees we'd seen yet, so of course, this was pretty important. The entire landscape was so amazing to behold, so we got plenty of scenic shots. Entries into the Napa Mustard Festival Photo Competition really might not be such a bad idea afterall. While Ryan practiced his budding photography skills, I researched some information on the wineries we still wanted to see. Our tummies were grumbling and when I looked at the clock and realized it was already after 2, I couldn't believe it - the day was so quickly slipping by us! I suggested that we stop and get a bite to eat and then head toward Grgich Hills, Miner Farms, and Louis V. Martini. It sounded like a lot to pack in, plus dinner later, but this was our last full day in Napa and we wanted to make the most of it.

We jumped back in the car, as a lightbulb went on over my head - the CIA! I had completely forgotten about the Culinary Insititute of America at Greystone, right up the road! Luckily I also remembered that they serve lunch, so we headed in that direction. As we pulled in, I felt the spirit of Julia Child come over me and I immediately wished I could cook our lunch myself. The building was immensely beautiful and inspirational. It made me think that if I could do things over again, maybe I'd consider a career in the culinary field because who would be able to pass up coming to school here? We walked around the building a bit, poking around the enormous store in the front full of all sorts of amazing kitchenware that I would give my left set of toes for. Then we wandered through an interesting and elaborate collection of corkscrews, which seemed like an odd display, until I remembered that this school is located smack in the middle of wine country; so, maybe it wasn’t so weird. This wandering led us to a classroom that looked like it was straight off of Food Network. It was like a college lecture hall with a Kitchen Stadium (Iron Chef) set up at the front. We tried to take some pictures, but it was too dark and there were people in tall white chef hats eyeing us from afar. We quickly scurried away. We walked around the building for a few minutes, before setting off to find the restaurant. However, by the time we got to the front door and realized what time it was – almost 3 – we decided that maybe lunch at CIA wasn’t quite an option if we wanted to get to everything else on our list. I called it an even break since we got to spend a little time exploring the building; maybe having a meal could wait until our next visit. We jumped back in the car and headed off for a quick bite.

We ended up stopping to grab a sandwich in St. Helena at a quirky little place called the Giugni & Son Grocery Company. It was the first place we saw, it looked quick, and definitely had a lot of character – generally a key factor in our decision making process. The sandwiches were amazing – for such a little deli, they had so many amazing meats and cheeses from all over for such reasonable prices. They had a lot of custom spreads and fillings to add; it was incredible. We scarfed down each of our sandwiches, a bag of chips, and a big water, quickly hustling on our way. After getting back in the car, we reevaluated our course of action. By now it was a little after 4 and time was quickly ticking away. Some of the wineries closed at 4:30, 5, and then 6. We had to lay out our plan accordingly. We decided to hit up Grgich Hills first, since they were the first on the list to close. I really wanted Ryan to taste their Chardonnay, since he is such a fan of that grape and theirs is so historic. Grgich Hills, for those of you who might not know, is the winery presented in the movie Bottle Shock. That movie depicts the comeuppance of California as a world recognized wine producer, especially against France. A now historic blind tasting was set up in Paris in 1976 where international judges blind tasted the Chardonnay of Grgich Hills against the most famous white wines of France. Mike Grgich’s Chardonnay won the tasting, hands down, as the best white wine in the world and put California wineries on the map, so to speak. It’s just one of those wineries you should check out, even just for the story.

We pulled into Grgich with our buy one get one free coupon and saddled up to the bar. As we got into the tasting, we discovered a few interesting things – our personal favorite from Grgich wasn’t their Chardonnay at all, it was their Fume Blanc. Ryan’s solid favorite was still the August Briggs Chard. Grgich did have a nice Merlot, though, which was a pleasant surprise. We didn’t spend much more time there, except to decide that a bottle of Fume Blanc would be the gift I’d take home to thank Katie for helping out with the cats while we were away. As we got into the car, realized the time, and felt the weight of the whole day come crashing down on us, we took a deep breath and decided that maybe this should be our last stop. We still had two wineries on the list, but when it came right down to it, there is such a thing as burning the candle at both ends on vacation; something we definitely did not want to do. We decided to head back to Franciscan while we were in the area to get a few gifts and then go back to Lavender to relax, maybe get in on the wine tasting over at Masion Fleurie, then relax some more over dinner.

As it turned out, one winery that we drove past quite a few times, Alpha Omega, was the featured tasting at Maison Fleurie. We took a nice walk over there again this evening, had a few snacks and tasted their wines. Compared to some of the great stuff we tasted earlier in the day, these didn’t really compare. They were pretty decent, and definitely earned pluses for being free and delivered practically to our doorstep, but not something I would have been disappointed to have missed. I think the most entertaining part of the afternoon was the actual representative from Alpha Omega who, upon learning about our coming trip down the coast, absolutely insisted that we stop in San Luis Obispo. Apparently she is from that area, and although I didn’t read much about it in my research to lead me to want to stop there for any amount of time, this girl would have you believe that San Luis Obispo was where California began and ended. I’m pretty sure she may have been running for mayor, or at least the head of their tourism department. It got to a point of hilarity that we began counting how many times she said the words “San Luis Obispo.” I think we lost track after 16.

On our way back to Lavender, we discussed our plans for dinner. After such a long, activity packed day, getting dressed to sit in a restaurant for dinner sounded less than appealing. We decided to order out for pizza and watch episodes of The Mentalist in bed. It couldn’t have been a better decision, as we came to find out. Kicking our feet up and reliving the day was great and I am always grateful for a delicious slice or 2 of pizza. We enjoyed the comfort of our room, had some cookies and hot cocoa for dessert, and snuggled in before part 3 of our journey would commence in the morning.