Wine Tasting in Napa Valley
Napa Valley is the mecca of American wine making.
As an amateur wine connoisseur, I was delighted to visit Napa, as I’m delighted by the pretense of all things wine. I love the detailed steps of tasting. I love the wine maker’s fastidious devotion to craft. I love the communal and familial nature of wine making, the history of the vines and the land, the temperamental aspects of soil, sun, and rain — all of it.
When people really give wine tasting a try, spending time to swirl, smell, tilt, see, sip, swoosh, swallow, and decipher, there can be a moment of peace and focus that follows. That, I love. The earth offers its fruits, the workers offer their labor, and the taster offers their attention. Deciphering flavors on the tongue is really a process of the senses connecting with memory and heart. When wine hits the tongue, a flurry of associations are set off; sommeliers build these associations around the wines of the world, but us Muggles have mainly our memories to work from.
Why does one taster say butterscotch where another says vanilla? Did her grandmother used to slip butterscotch candies into her coat pocket before hugging goodbye? Why does one taster say tobacco where another says chocolate? Does he smoke cigars by his backyard fire-pit? Lavender rather than violet? Slate rather than soil?
People roll their eyes at this fantasy world of flavors, as they should. The industry is necessarily run by privileged bloodlines, the only people in the world who have enough money to sink millions into a minimally profitable business model. To me, that’s okay — some things in this world are gold plated and others aren’t. What’s true, regardless, is that an attempt to taste wine is a quiet moment of reflection about where we’ve been, what we’ve done, who has loved us and what they gave to us. It’s grandma’s butterscotch candy. It’s the grass you slid in on the soccer field. It’s the rain drying off the concrete as you walked to school. It’s the stone fruit you ate with your sister in the summers, peach juice running down your wrists.
Itinerary - Day 1 (planned to perfection)
8 am - Wake up & eat breakfast
10 am - First wine tasting (Far Niente)
11:30 am - Have lunch (Oakville Grocery)
1 pm - Second tasting + tour (Stags’ Leap)
3 pm - Third tasting (Robert Mondavi)
5 pm - Dinner (Ciccio)
7 pm - Be horizontal
If you couldn’t already tell, I was excited for Napa. I brought a notebook. In addition to its emotive qualities, wine tasting can also be academic, like a multiple-choice test to which you’re given the answer key. I like to cover up the menu’s tasting notes, sip, jot, and then ‘check my answers’. The fourth-grader in me, the one who used to go crazy for back-to-school supplies and would line up her pencils and markers in her clear bubble case, loves it. Stefan laughed at me, my pen, and my notes but was happy to see me happy. More than anything, he was looking forward to two days off of work as a deep exhale before Swell would begin its fundraising round, an exciting, laborious, and high-stakes process during which time Stefan would work 12-16 hour days.
Far Niente Wine Estate
On the way to stop number one, we dropped Hazel at a trusted dog-sitter (a first for us!). We arrived to Far Niente bright-eyed and unworried about our ward and were shown to a lovely garden patio overlooking a pond and vines. As weather in the valley can be unpredictably chilly or dewy, a blanket hung on the back of the chair. I snuggled in. Notebook open, pen uncapped, glasses on, dressed in full Autumn garb from boots to sweater, now a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I was ready. The cool, moisture-filled air was so different from the climate we’d become accustomed to in Southern California.
Though we had left Pacific Beach on September 21, the weather was no different on the day we left than when we’d arrived on July 21, so Fall hadn’t begun to happen for us. We flew back to New York, where it was confusingly balmy until our last day: sunny and brisk. We flew back to LA (coastal summertime), drove up through SLO (valley summertime — suffocating heat), through San Francisco (a disorienting mix of about three seasons in one day), and up into Northern California. Marin was chillier, but still bone-dry.
Napa was not only chilly but now dewy. Autumn laid down on our skin.
A light-haired man with watery blue eyes walked over to pour. He was very nice but spoke at a racing clip, dropping terms of viticulture, regions, microclimates, and industry names. If I knew even one term he was discussing, I’d very casually chime in, to seem smart.
“Ah, you mean Noble Rot, of course,” I said proudly at one point.
Anyway, I mostly just tried the wines — which are divine — and enjoyed the scenery and Stef’s company.
Here are my tasting notes for Far Niente’s top wines:
2019 Estate Chardonnay — Bouquet floral, honeysuckle / Palette honey, chamomile, non-buttery, grass / Body light / Mouthfeel mineral, light. Delicious! Balanced!
2018 EnRoute Pinot Noir — sister vineyard; Body light / Color ruby / Bouquet tobacco / Palette leather, violet / Tannin medium / Strong flavor! Pair with cheese or meat!
2013 Cabernet Sauvignon — Touch of Petit Verdot blended in / Bouquet plum, oak / Palette oak, cherry / Tannin high / Color deep violet / Body medium / Subtle! Soft!
2013 Late Harvest Dolce — Mouthfeel a dessert wine that doesn’t just taste like syrup / Color rich gold / Body full / Nose butterscotch, jasmine / Palette apricot, warm spice, caramel / A super special dessert wine that you’d want to save for a decadent occasion.
Oakville Grocery
Shout out to my very organized husband who planned such that we were a half hour ahead of the crowds all day. We visited Oakville Grocery at 11:30 am for lunch — so early! From the local purveyor, we ordered gourmet sandwiches and were seated by noon when — on the dot — a line formed out the door. The crowd was on top of one another and we observed here and elsewhere people bickering about a time-crunch or hunger. Starting early and eating early made all the difference.
Stags’ Leap Winery
We arrived to Stags’ Leap early and our host checked us in, rather diligently. Inside the manor, we sipped a Viognier by a crackling fire as our tour mates strolled in. One tour per day, that’s Stefan’s rule. This visit would be a full immersion experience, a tasting plus a group tour of the mansion, grounds, and even, the vines!
A woman in a leopard print skirt and jean jacket walked in with her husband. One man with a camera hanging around his neck walked in with his boyfriend. Four older folks entered last, seeming like two couples on vacation together, three of them looking happy enough and the last, a potbellied, balding man, looking like he was being dragged through a most ridiculous charade. He sat on a stool separate from the group and breathed heavily into his mask. His wife ignored him.
Our host began the tour, speaking in an unsettling rhythm of ups and downs. We gathered ‘round and strolled through a tasting room and cellar to learn the lengthy, tumultuous history of the vineyard. The short version goes like this: after over a century of production, a man bought nearby property and gave his vineyard the same name, Stag’s Leap. The issue ended up in court. The man was Warren Winiarski, whose vineyard produced the now famous Cabernet Sauvignon that beat out all European wines for best in show at the 1976 Judgement of Paris competition. This man put Napa on the map. He won the lawsuit. The vineyard we were at was required by law to change their name slightly by moving the apostrophe. Stag’s Leap became Stags’ Leap — if you mention ‘the apostrophe wars’ to Napa inhabitants, they know what you mean.
After two hours of semi-interesting lecture, we were finally left alone to just taste some wine.
I turned to Stefan. “Wait, so, we’re at the bad one?”
We laughed. And continued laughing, kind of rudely and trying to hide it, as the older group began infighting at the table. They were growing agitated because our host, who really had run himself breathless with his arduous lecture, had disappeared. In the moment to capitalize on the sale, he simply vanished. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five!
The disgruntled older man gruffed. His agitated wife grew vocal.
“Well this is obviously ridiculous! I would love to purchase some wines! I mean I can’t really tell the difference between these two,” she waved her hand over two empty glasses, “but I’d love to buy some bottles. Where is he? We have to go! We can’t be late. The next appointment is in,” she looked at her watch, “Oh! We have to go! Where is he?”
A few people who had entered the building minutes prior walked into our tasting space.
“Do you know if anybody works here?” one of them shouted at us.
“He left! We haven’t seen him!” our agitated companions shouted back.
Our tour mates let themselves out and as front door clicked shut, on cue, our host re-entered the tasting room.
“You just missed them,” I said, swallowing my laughter as best I could. “And…there’s some people in the waiting room asking about their tour starting.”
He peeked into the waiting room and then stuck his head into an office. He poured us more wine than we could drink and he never tried to make the sale. A manager walked out of the office and into the waiting room. We could hear her speaking.
“Good afternoon. Hi, hello. So, I understand you’re here for a 2:30 appointment, but I checked our system and we actually don’t have anyone arriving at 2:30. I think you’re probably looking for the other Stag(’)s(’) Leap. You need to make sure that you’re putting the apostrophe in the right place in Maps or Uber.”
“The apostrophe?” A disembodied, aggravated voice asked.
Our host looked at us, a little tired.
“Bet this happens a lot,” Stefan said.
We could barely stifle our laughter for another second.
Robert Mondavi
Our last tasting of the day was at Robert Mondavi, my choice. I knew it would be a more commercial experience, but my parents always buy Mondavi for easy-drinking table wine to have on the wine rack, and I wanted to visit a label that I’d grown up with. National distribution definitely did align with a more commercial experience, but the wine was tasty and I was happy to have seen the space. We also learned here that three tastings in a day is a bit ambitious — it’s hard to taste anything at all on your twentieth wine of the day. We were toasted, happy, and ready for a delicious dinner to soak it all up.
Ciccio Restaurant, Yountville
We ate at a local, unassuming restaurant called Ciccio that looks like a small-town barn from the exterior. We arrived one minute ahead of their 5 o’clock opening. (Like I said, Stefan was planned.) We were the third group to reach the hostess podium and at 5:01, received the last two open seats at the bar; tables were reserved through the evening. Locals love Ciccio, a secret tucked under the hood of the valley. Visitors like us sneak in. The food is farm-to-table and the chefs have capitalized on the culinary culture of the now refined region. Two bowls of pasta cooked to perfection and layered with balanced flavors sopped up the vintages in our bellies, thank goodness.
More to come!
