Side trip! While we were staying in Lake Tahoe, we realized it was just a short three-hour drive to the Napa wine region in California. This would normally be a 12-hour drive from our house in Arizona, so we thought it would be worth it to take a short weekend side trip from Tahoe.
We arrived in the Napa region just in time for lunch. It was a Saturday, so there was some traffic as we wound our way north on the St Helena Highway through the vineyards. The familiar names on the winery signs were tempting, but our first destination was a spot more known for its burgers than its grapes -- Gott's Roadside. They had a really nice outdoor picnic area and the burgers were absolutely delicious.
Since I prefer my wines with bubbles, we had booked an afternoon tasting at Mumm Napa. It did not disappoint! We had excellent service and loved the generous pours of various sparkling wine varieties. Definitely a good tasting room to visit if you have something to celebrate, like a birthday or anniversary. Or if you want to just celebrate life in general by drinking some sparkly wine with a fabulous vineyard view!
Another winery we really liked was Vincent Arroyo. The tasting room had a very casual vibe, but they had so many varietals available to taste or to purchase -- Chardonnay, Sirah, Cabs, Merlot, Sangiovese, Zinfandel and even a Port. So of course we definitely had to try the port, having just been to Porto and the Douro valley last November -- it was actually pretty good, so we picked up a bottle to bring home with us.
Just like everywhere else in the Southwest this summer, the Calistoga area was experiencing an unusual heat wave. Definitely a concern for the grapes currently on the vines, although the ones near the Vincent Arroyo tasting room looked okay to us. Kevin tried one but it wasn't very sweet -- there's a reason they differentiate between wine grapes and table grapes. Too many seeds for me!
This trip was mostly about the wine tasting, but we did get tickets to a wonderful evening of jazz at the Charles Krug winery. Bebel Gilberto is bossanova royalty -- she's the daughter of Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto and a world-famous musician in her own right, with four Grammy nominations. She put on a charismatic and delightful performance, and it was wonderful to sip some wine and enjoy the music in such a beautiful outdoor setting.
One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the world-famous Chateau Montelena. The winery is one of the oldest in the Napa Valley, having been established in the 1880s by a man named Alfred Tubbs.
After prohibition, the winery fell into decline and was purchased in the 1950s by Yort Wing Frank who used the chateau as a vacation home. He improved the landscape around the chateau by excavating Jade Lake and building a beautiful Chinese garden. It is a very peaceful spot -- we sat and watched the swans for a bit after we finished our tasting.
But the primary reason that Chateau Montelena is world-famous is because of the "Judgement of Paris". In the 1970s, the Barrett family replanted the vines and began producing wine again. There was a wine competition in 1976 that pitted the upstart American wineries against the old guard French wineries from Bordeaux and Burgundy. In a blind tasting, the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay was ranked above all the other white wines. (Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, another American wine, won the honors in the red wine judgement). This competition put the Napa region on the wine map, so to speak. There is an excellent movie about this competition that we saw a few years ago called "Bottle Shock". Having tasted the wines from Montelena, I can agree that they live up to their reputation!
With our wine weekend trip coming to an end, we visited one last winery - Bennett Lane. It was probably the friendliest and most down-to-earth tasting experience we had on this trip. Our host Bill was incredibly knowledgeable about the history of Calistoga and the local wineries, and he made sure we had a wonderful experience tasting the wines. By the end of our visit it was like we'd been sitting talking with an old friend.
Calistoga is a town full of charm and we had such a nice getaway here in California wine country! I think this photo sums up our time here very nicely:
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