Morning drinking in wine country
Trip Start
Sep 11, 2009
1
27
58
Trip End
Oct 21, 2009
Napa, California
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Upon arrival at Vallejo, the ferry conductor pointed us towards the bus for the Napa Wine Train. We happily boarded and settled in. The guide then introduced himself, checked-off his passengers, announced the stops he will be making and proceeded to start the engine. I was slightly baffled as he said they would be making 2 stops, but we were supposed to visit at least 6 wineries! Thankfully I went up to ask, as it turned out that we were on the wrong bus!!! Hahahahahahhaaa!!! BLUR!!!
We jumped off the bus and found our correct bus and hopped on. We then made a few stops around the Napa area to people up, and ended up with 4 other couples on the tour. It was a good crowd, 10 people. Our guide, Karl was amazing. He is quite an interesting character, local to Napa and very knowledgeable about wine and US (especially California) history. He really looked after us extremely well.
We visited the following wineries:
(1) Hagafen - small winery, making kosher wine. Their wine has been served many times during White House receptions. US Presidents from Reagan to Bush poured their wine at the White House. We thought the wine was quite good, but nothing really that special! We are now convinced that they are the wine of choice, only when kosher wine is preferred.
(2) Black Stallion - our favourite winery of all. It is a very small winery, making only about 4000 cases each year. It is a very very classy winery, the interior done very tastefully. Their wines were also very very good. Our favourites were their Pinot Grigio and their Syrah Rose. We were also very lucky, as the winemaker came in with some freshly pressed grape juice as we were there, so we got to try the juice. It was very sweet, and really delicious.
(3) Mario Andretti - ex racecar driver turned winemaker??? He has a lovely Tuscan-style winery, but the wines were really nothing special and the tasting was quite expensive at $15! Thanks to Karl, we got a buy-one-free-one card, so it was ok.
(4) V.Sattui - higher up in the hills, beautiful lunch spot. We stopped at Sattui for lunch (as do all Napa tours) as they have a wicked deli, selling 140 varieties of cheeses, salami, dips, breads etc. We grabbed a herb slab of bread to go with a tub of hummus and a tub of artichoke cream cheese with garlic and parmesan. It was very yummy, and we had fantastic picnic weather. We did the wine tasting after lunch, but their wines were nothing special, and their staff were just plain dismissive.
(5) Mondavi - the Henry Ford of Napa Wines. The Mondavi winery is amazingly huge! They are definitely a large establishment, offering various tours and exhibitions within their compound. The tasting was rather expensive at $20 for 3, so we just got one to share. We tasted the reserve wines which are available only from the winery. They were deep reds and they were all very very good, full of flavour, but also very very expensive, at about $60 per bottle.
(6) Diamond Oaks - small, homey winery. Another winery making only about 5-6K cases per year. I had one of the best Chardonnays here. Their Cabernet Sauvignon was also one of the better ones we have had.
(7) Chandon - sparkling wine specialist. Apparently, their sparkling wine rival the top French champagnes. This was the last stop, and we were all bubbling from all the wine, so I am sure no one really tasted the wine very well here. We had a great time here, as we got chatting with the other two young couples and it was really fun. I really liked the Riche, which is quite a sweet one as it contains Muscat.
We then got dropped off back at the harbour, and got put on the bus (instead of the ferry) back to San Francisco as the ferries had stopped running for the day. It was a great bus ride, fantastic views crossing the bridge and it only took 45 minutes!
What a great day! Our tour guide was really fantastic and our tour group perfect. We had just the right mix of people and there were no annoying ones in our group! I would recommend this tour to anyone!!!
