Napa Valley

In the whirlwind first part of our journey, we stayed in a different place every night, keeping up with the Mini Takes the States itinerary.  But this was the first day we stayed two nights in one place, and the reason was that Martha had signed us up for a tour of area vineyards on the Wine Trolley.  What a great idea!  And this was not the first great idea she has had on this trip nor the last.

Before the Trolley showed up, I had time for an early-morning run, the first time I had been out since Green Bay.  It was a cool 57 degrees and there was a nice neighborhood behind us; it reminded me of other well-heeled areas, nicely-landscaped homes, folks out walking.  I ran for a mile or so and came upon a school, the Justin Siena High School, circled down the driveway, and  stumbled on a quarter-mile track.  So I ran a couple of 400s - nice!  I have definitely lost some fitness but could still run a little fast, and it was great to be on a real track again.

The Wine Trolley was captained by a pair of great, informative docents (one of them in training), and they told us all about this area as we made our way up  the Napa Valley through Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford, and St. Helena, little gems of towns and plenty of money apparent. 

80% of the local residents make their living from the wine industry, including the many very nice hotels, galleries, shops, and first-class restaurants - there are more Michelin Star restaurants in such a concentrated area here than anywhere in the country.  We passed CIA headquarters (Culinary Institute of America, that is), and many well-known wineries - Beringer, Sutter Home, Francis Ford Coppola, and plenty of lesser-known boutique wineries.  Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto has a restaurant here, and we also pass the exclusive and very pricey French Laundry, a small inconspicuous place where we are told you must wait two years for a reservation.  There is lovely landscaping everywhere - Italian Cypress like those above, flowers, gardens and statues.  Olive groves do well here, too, but most of the land is entirely taken over with the cultivation of the grape.

Some vines are planted east to west, and some are planted north to south, taking advantage of different kinds of sunlight depending on the vine.  We notice bird houses in some of the field, and also roses at the ends of rows.

The owls are encouraged because they feed on rodents, and the territorial bluebirds keep out other birds.  The roses are scentless and are planted to show the first signs of a kind of disease that sometimes afflicts the vines (whose name I could not remember), like canaries in a coal mine.  Some of these vines have been here for a long time, and their roots in the rocky soil can extend to a hundred feet.

Our first stop is the Castello di Amorosa, the  pet project of a very wealthy fourth generation vintner, Dario Sattui.  It took 15 years to build and cost $40 million, and is intended to replicate a 13th-Century Tuscan castle, although it is very modern (it has to meet building codes) and contains an up-to-date winery (they did not make good wine in the 13th century).

 
Our tour guide is Gary, and he is very entertaining.  He told us he grew up in California in the 70s when everybody had a waterbed, an orange cat, and a VW Beetle, and wears a big, outlandish hat over his long hair.  I suspected he might still own a VW Beetle, and maybe an orange cat.

 
He clearly enjoys giving these tours, and his narrative is peppered with little gems of wisdom, so many that you could barely keep up.  "The best bottle of wine is the one you just finished and enjoyed," he told us.  And he told us that air is the enemy of wine; waxing philosophical, he said, "The moment we start breathing, we start living.  And we start dying." 

Gary tells us that these exacting wine-makers harvest from 11:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m., when the temperature is exactly 72 degrees.  Then we have a wine tasting, where Gary's true passion and knowledge becomes apparent.  "Cabernet Sauvignon?" he asks, pouring a little into a glass (the wine made here is not sold to any wine merchant, by the way; you have to purchase it here and take it with you, or have it shipped).  "It may or may not be Cabernet."  By law, the wine consists of 75% the grape, 85% the region, and 95% the year.

We wind through dark corridors deep in the bowels of this castle, and, pausing to take a photo (the one above, I think) I become separated from the group; the bus driver (who is instructed to remain with stragglers, apparently) and I wind up in several dead ends, and finally have to make our way upstairs where we are told where Gary probably is - the torture chamber, where there is a 300-year-old Iron Maiden purchased in Italy.  Martha is glad to see me again!

We have lunch at Cairdean, another vineyard on the way back to our hotel in Napa.  It has warmed up, but we want to sit outside, visiting with other folks on our tour who are interested to learn about Mini Takes the States.  Many of them have been to San Francisco (our next stop) and we hear all about Alcatraz and Fisherman's Wharf.  We sit under the shade of some big coastal redwoods, and our driver tells us that groups of these trees have an unusual ability to stay stronger in more rugged parts of the coast by intertwining their roots together.  And that's a good definition of a strong society, or a strong marriage, after all.

At the end of this perfect day, we return to the Napa Valley Ivy Premier, and end up walking next door to Il Posto Trattoria, where they welcome us back a second time.