Napa / Sonoma / SF Trip Report

[BK_]

Napa and Sonoma Trip Report



In a pretty large coincidence, my girlfriend and I recently accepted new jobs and requested a little time off before starting. (Ok, maybe not that large a coincidence) We had been wanting to take a trip to California wine country for the last 3 months or so, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. Cooking, eating, and drinking / learning about wine are just about the only hobbies we have these days, so Napa / Sonoma seemed like the perfect destination. We booked our trip rather last minute, but thanks to thisthread started by El Diablo and this thread started by Clarkmeister we were able to plan it rather quickly.

We took the 9 am flight out of Newark and arrived in San Francisco around 11. Eager to get into Napa as soon as possible so and stop at a couple of wineries, we decided to drive right through San Francisco. Luckily there was time at the end of the trip to walk around a bit and have dinner at “Chapeau!”. Anyway, more on that later. Starving, we decided to stop at In-N-Out burger halfway to Napa. I had no idea that the food here was so cheap. I enjoyed the burger a lot and can see why a lot of people think this place is the best fast food restaurant in the U.S. Is it as good as a place like Shake Shack in NYC? No, but its drive-through and there isn’t a 1 hour wait.



Thanks to some traffic and delays at the airport, we didn’t actually hit Napa until 3:30. Plenty of time to visit 2 wineries! Our first stop was Trefethen. El Diablo highly recommended this place in the trip report above, so I was pretty excited.

Just as a little background, my wine knowledge is not very advanced. Most of what I do know comes from just drinking, so my tasting notes below might be a pretty basic.

Trefethen

Wine – 4/5
Experience – 4/5







The wine tasting was definitely off to a good start. Trefethen is a relatively small winery, though I think they are in limited distribution in certain parts of the country. The lady behind the bar ended up pouring us two tastings from every wine on both the regular and reserve lists. I think she ended up waiving the tasting fee as well (we bought two bottles) Its funny how much these little gestures mean in terms of overall experience. Anyway, we tasted the following:

Dry Riesling ($20) – This came up a bit short to me, especially compared to the German and Alsatian Rieslings we are more familiar with. It is pretty similar to Alsatian Riesling I think, but I prefer this bottle for 3 dollars less. Compared to the couple of Rieslings we had on this trip, however, this was probably the best.

Estate Viognier ($30). Very good. Fresh, rich citrus and peach flavors. Very slight oak (aged 9 months in French Oak). We ended up buying this one.

Chardonnay ($30) Good. We were surprised to taste so much citrus in a chardonnay.

Cabernet Franc ($35)

Pinot Noir ($45) – Good, but not remarkable.

Double T (Bourdeaux Blend - $24) – Very good and excellent value. This wine is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, mixed with smaller amounts of Merlot, Peitit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec. We bought this one.

Cabernet Sauvignon ’04 ($50) – Very good. We don’t drink a lot of California Cabernet, but I enjoyed this. I was really looking forward to the next one though…

Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ’02 ($80) – Excellent. One of the top three cabs we had on the trip.

Late Harvest Riesling ($50) – Good, but something was a bit off. Definitely not worth the 50 dollars for a 375 ml bottle.






V. Sattui



We were shocked by how late it was when we finally left Trefethen. With only 30 minutes or so left in the wine-tasting day, we checked our map for the closest winery on our list. I read somewhere that V. Sattui was a must visit, but could not remember the reasons why. Turns out, people love this place for its beautiful picnic area and food store, and unfortunately not for the wines.

That being said, we had a decent time. The tastings were free (a rarity in these big wineries), and the host was very generous in what he lets us try. We decided to take full advantage of our last tasting of the day and have almost everything on the list. The only wine we bought was the Gamay Rouge, a cheap ($18) rose that tasted a lot like strawberries. If the guy hadn’t been so nice, I doubt we would have been inclined to purchase anything.







Despite the disappointing wine, V. Sattui turns out to be one of the most important stops we made on our trip. We asked the host for winery recommendations and he very strongly suggested that we stop at Arroyo Winery the next morning. This turned out to be one of the best visits of the entire trip, and led to several other recommendations that were spot-on. Its funny how things work sometimes.



Following the lead of Clarkmeister and several others, I’ll do this trip report in installments. To come, winery visits to Vincent Arroyo, August Briggs, Sterling, Clos Pegase, Frank Family, Louis Martini, Benziger, Imagery, Goosecross, Reynolds Family, Hagafen, Gundlach-Bundschu and Turnbull. And restaurant trip reports for All Seasons Bistro, Taylor’s Refresher, Café La Haye, The General’s Daughter, and “Chapeau!”.

[El Diablo]

BK,

Awesome start. Looking forward to the rest. Glad Trefethen was a good visit for you. Yeah, the wine at V Sattui is unremarkable, but it's still a great place to visit - especially for a picnic lunch from their deli. Sounds like you had a good time anyway - free tasting w/ nice staff is a lot of fun even without the greatest wine.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

your first pic is amazing

[James282]

pics are incredible - and great report. i dont read the forum that much these days but would love to follow this...will you post it in the same thread so i can favorite it, or will you make me keep checking back in!?

[Poofler]

[ QUOTE ]
Dry Riesling ($20) – This came up a bit short to me, especially compared to the German and Alsatian Rieslings we are more familiar with. It is pretty similar to Alsatian Riesling I think, but I prefer this bottle for 3 dollars less. Compared to the couple of Rieslings we had on this trip, however, this was probably the best.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was at Trefethen last March, with my girlfriend, who has literally never ordered wine at a restaurant that was not a Reisling. Nor Cal is definitely not Reisling territory. We must have visited 15 wineries without seeing one, until someone directed us to Trefethen. It wasn't bad, but I've had much better from So Cal. Even Firestone of all places.

[BK_]

Diablo - The deli looks great. I was really tempted to buy some salami and cheese but wasn't sure if the first hotel had a mini fridge. When we were there, unfortunately it had just rained and the picnic area was wet.

James,
I will make all posts in this thread.

Poofler,
Totally agree re: Northern Cal reisling after this trip. I havn't ever been to southern cal - how does the wine compare? Are there types of grapes / wines that do better in southern cal than northern? I'm sure I've had southern wines before, but I never know what part of california they come from.

[turnipmonster]

awesome trip report, looking forward to the next version. I'm going to use the first pic as my desktop I think.

[BK_]

Thanks all.

We headed north to Calistoga to check into our hotel, the Mount View Hotel and Spa.



The lobby and location were great, but the rooms were pretty small and not soundproof at all. Oh well, we were only staying there one night and thats what you get for booking last minute in Napa for 199 a night. Anyway, we made it to 7:30 dinner reservations at All Seasons Bistro just in time. We chose this place because it was featured in the New York Times a little while back. We also read (from a different site) that there was an adjoining wine store next door that you could buy from directly and only pay a 15 dollar corkage fee. While it was true that they were next to a wine store, all of its lights were out, and the waiters played dumb when I asked about it. I went from slightly disappointed to really disappointed when our waiter (who looked to be the most experienced of the bunch) could not recommend a good local Pinot. I think she just picked one at random (Tandem "Pelaton" - not bad). For food, we split 2 appetizers and 2 entrees:

App: Lobster Bisque with Truffle Oil

App: Pumpkin Risotto Special

Entree: Sonoma duck "duo" with juices and provencal vegetables

Entree: Roasted Rack of Lamb with Rocolla Pesto

We liked the bisque but were really confused by the risotto. It looked and tasted more like regular rice than risotto. I'm pretty sure they didn't cook the risotto long enough or didn't use enough broth, leaving it pretty flavorless and too crunchy.

The lamb was ok but the duck was pretty bland and overcooked. Both seemed like things we could make better. Regardless, I wasn't really discouraged because this was the dinner I was looking forward to least. I chose it because of the attached wine store and the proximity to our hotel. If we were to trust Zagat, the next three dinners would be far superior, and luckily this ended up being true.

It rained all night, but when we got up the next morning, the weather started clearing up nicely.



We went to breakfast at Cafe Sarafornia. The food was actually really good... just what we needed to get ready for a full day of tasting. (I had andouille sausage with scrambled eggs and Molly had Mexican omlette) We also got a bit of a history lesson. Apparently the town's founder wanted to market the place as the "Saratoga of California". After a few drinks, he accidentally called it the "Calistoga of Sarafornia". Hence the town and restaurant name.

Following up on a recommendation from the day before, I called Vincent Arroyo to see if they had any reservations open. Luckily, they did, and we arrived 10 minutes later.



Vincent Arroyo

Wine: 5/5
Experience: 5/5



This place was great - one of our favorite on the entire trip. We walked into their barrel room and and up to the small tasting table. The main guy was busy with another couple, so another guy (who I think was Vincent Arroyo himself) poured us some chardonnay and asked if we would like a quick unofficial tour. Of course we said yes, so he led us through the back and to the main processing area.



I told him that we didn't know a ton about wine making so he spent the next 20 minutes or so showing us the machines and describing every step along the way. You could tell that he was confident in his company and enjoyed making wine. Turns out Vincent Arroyo sells almost all their wine through "futures". 80% of their wine is sold before it is bottled each year. Luckily for us, the 3 types that they had left were ones that we typically enjoy. (Tastings were free)

Chardonnay '06 ($22) - Excellent. Ridiculous value.

Merlot '05 ($28) - Excellent.

Petite Syrah '05 ($32) - Excellent - our favorite.

JJ's Blend '05 ($20) - Excellent - Light Cabernet blend.

I'm probably going to join their "club" so I can get a shot at the futures for next year. A full list of their wines can be found here . I really want that Petite Syrah Reserve for $45.



The wine shop was totally separate from the tasting room (which is nice - no pressure), so we headed over to buy some wines. We ended up getting 1 bottle of chardonnay and 2 petite syrah's. Looking back, I wish we had bought more, but I felt silly buying so much at our third winery of the trip. Fueled by the success of the recommendation that bought us here, we asked the cashier about her favorite wineries in the area. She suggested that we go down the road to August Briggs, so that is what we did.





August Briggs



Like Vincent Arroyo, August Briggs is a small winery with a quaint tasting area. They do have some distribution outside the winery, but not much. When I asked if they have any in NYC, she mentioned that they are only in a couple of restaurants, including Per Se. Not bad. Like Vincent Arroyo, tastings were free. (It seemed like wineries that rely on direct sales tend to charge a lot less for tastings than the wineries with large distribution)

Chardonnay ($32) - Excellent. Tropical fruits with vanilla and a soft oak. Not too heavy and not too light... very nice.

Pinot Noir ($38) - Excellent and our favorite of the bunch. Really nice fruit with a long finish. There was something really unique about this one but I had a hard time putting my finger on it.

Zinfandel ($38) Excellent. Typical zin - blackberry, plum, chocholate. Very nicely done though... we never buy zin and almost bought this one.

Cabernet Sauvignon '04 ($55) Excellent again. One of the cab values we tasted on the trip.

We ended up buying the Chardonnay and the Pinot. Looking back, I regret not buying the Zinfandel. If I had a larger wine refrigerator, I would have bought another Pinot and let it age for another year or so. I highly recommend that anyone traveling to Napa in the Spring stop here and at Vincent Arroyo. Though make sure you call Arroyo before hand and make sure they have wines to taste - I think they are typically sold out for much of the year.

Since we got off to such an early start, we decided to visit one more winery before lunch. After stopping at two small wineries in a row, we figured it was time to do one of the big ones. Sterling seemed to fit the bill perfectly - I've heard good things about the tram tour and the scenery. Plus the clouds had finally left Napa.

Sterling

Wine: 2/5
Experience: 5/5



Sterling was the perfect "big winery" visit in my opinion. Everything was a spectacle - from the huge, industrial facilities to the tram ride to the views from the top of the mountain. The wines were not very good (we chose not to do the reserve tasting... I hear these are pretty impressive), but wine tasting isn't what this place is about. We were too caught up in the scenery to make any meaningful tasting notes, so here are some pictures from our visit:



























Taylor's Automatic Refresher



We were starving so we decided to make the 5 minute drive to Taylor's Refresher on Route 29. I heard great things about this place and its burgers but I was still extremely impressed. They cook everything medium-well, but it was still one of the most flavorful burgers I have ever had. Thinking back, I actually think it might be the second best - just behind Resto in NYC. I got the Wisconsin Sourdough, which comes with grilled muschrooms, bacon, cheddar, mayo, and bbq sauce. I also tasted the Western Bacon Blue Ring (onion ring, blue cheese, bacon, pickles, red onion, and bbq sauce) but didn't like it quite as much. The sweet potato fries were the best I have ever had - the chili flavoring really worked for me.