“65 for 65” the sequel…………our wine tour through 65 wonderful Napa Valley wineries actually became a reality in March 2010. It was the ultimate celebration of Chuck’s 65th birthday, and the sequel to Linda’s 65th birthday tour in the fall of 2007. So there, now everyone knows our ages!
The planning for this event took several months in order to make it a carefully orchestrated smoothly flowing two weeks through the vineyards. Many past issues of Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate were carefully reviewed to determine the wine ratings of Napa wineries. Frank Pulice of Austin’s Wine Cellar and many of our wine sales representatives were called upon for their expert advice. Then websites were all researched. Another great help was “The Napa Wine Project” website. The staff of this website say they have personally visited and tasted with 600+ commercial wine producers in the Napa area. As you may know, there are a number of wineries that do not entertain visitors. Then there are many that see you only by appointment. And some just on certain days and times of the week! Once the list of hopefuls was developed, the calls or emails for appointments went out, and as the responses came in, the “mapquesting” of each day’s itinerary developed.
The original intention was to enter a new posting into ForkandCorkDivine each night throughout our journey while each day’s exciting visits were still fresh in our minds. But since today is July 9, it is most obvious that the best of intentions never happened. Now that the 800 plus pictures have been downloaded, printed and woven into a slide show presentation for the big screen TV, and the scrapbook that MUST be made of each wine trip is now underway, this seems like the next best perfect time to record our impressions of Napa in ForkandCorkDivine.
Everyone asks us “Which winery or wine was your favorite?” To which we reply that they are all our children, and we loved them all. Each visit had its own distinct characteristics that made it special. Of course there are a number that were extremely memorable for some reason or other, but each and every winery left some lasting impression on us. Maybe it was the view, maybe it was the outstanding wine, or the owner or winemaker who spent so much time with just us and no one else! Hopefully we can provide our readers with a little bit of information that paints a wonderful picture of each visit. And maybe you can do an imaginary tasting at each stop along the way with us.
Travel Day
So let’s begin at the beginning. Friday, March 5, was our cross country travel day. Our Delta airlines flights took us to Atlanta, Salt Lake City, and finally on to Sacramento. Do you know they have mountains and snow in Salt Lake City? We almost did not remember what it was! Then we remembered why we live in Florida! We had opted to fly into Sacramento airport on this trip and decided it was a good choice. It was an easy uneventful drive from there to Napa where we had planned to spend the first 3 nights. We had bypassed Napa on our previous visit, but heard things were beginning to “happen” in Napa once again. We found our stay there quite enjoyable. Our home base was the River Terrace Inn, located right on the Napa River, which was just a little trickle of water when we were there. It was most enjoyable sitting outside eating breakfast or lunch next to the firepit wearing a jacket and looking at the Napa River. We used the River Terrace Inn as our home base to visit wineries in Carneros, dowtown Napa, and corporate parks on the outskirts of town.
In addition to really pleasant weather, this time of year is famous for the mustard plant in bloom and blooming it was in almost every vineyard. There is even a festival to celebrate it. The Mustard Festival lasts for several months, and we were there to experience the beauty of the little yellow flowers for our entire visit. Many photo ops presented themselves in the vineyards as we drove up and down all of the country roads. We used three camera memory disks as well as several sets of lithium camera batteries. We have learned to travel prepared and “photo ready” on all occasions!
Here is the Napa River behind our Inn. There is even a vineyard next to the river!
The view from the River Terrace Inn
Entrance of The River Terrace Inn
Everyone has a grapevine! This is the entrance to the Inn.
