Ah, the joy of the dusty wine roads!

We finished at Jarvis and headed north on the Silverado Trail, meandering very shortly into the Stag’s Leap District (www.stagsleapdistrict.com), one of the highlight appellations of the Napa Valley. It’s a small “valley within a valley,” just a mile by three miles, home to twenty or so fine wineries, many conveniently located very near the main road!

Trying to be eco-conscious, we tried to pick clusters of wineries we could easily stagger… er… walk between, and so, our first stop was the famous “Stags Leap Wine Cellars” (www.cask23.com) considered one of the “first growths” of Napa Valley.  As a matter of fact, it was in the famous “Judgement in Paris”–the 1976 tasting where their 1973 “S.L.V.” Cabernet shocked the world by beating the best of France in horizontal blind tastings.

Their three signature wines are called “S.L.V.,” “Fay” (after the founder of the Stag’s Leap District), and “Cask 23,” truly a magnificent wine. (They have since added another famous wine entitled “Artemis,” which is a bit more available (and affordable!)) I was forced to purchase a bottle or six of each of these fine products. To speak of their enduring quality, I still have a bottle or two of that original purchase, and whenever a special occasion comes up and we open one, they amaze me again with their depth and quality.

Right across the street was Pine Ridge (vineyards.com">www.pineridgevineyards.com), and their premium offering was the Andrus Cabernet, which is, to this day, one of the finest I have had. (I have one bottle of the ’95 left, waiting for someone who appreciates fines wines to come by for a visit and give me an excuse to drink it… any takers?)

Next we hit Silverado Cellars (vineyards.com">www.silveradovineyards.com) but it passed in a bit of a blur, other than the fact we had a great picnic lunch on their grounds.

I have to say I was a bit preoccupied by this point, not just because of the great wines we had enjoyed, but because our next stop was along the Oakville Crossroad… Silver Oak, makers of my first great glass of wine, and one of the “must sees” on my list!

Until tomorrow…

Cheers!

WCI

California Wine, Fine Wine, USA Wine, Vineyards, Wine Club, Wine Club Gift, Wine Education, Wine Lovers, Wine Tasting, Wine Tours Napa, wine club gifts, wine clubs, Wine Tours, Wineries

When last we met…

WCI back with you, remembering the heady first weekend in Napa!

Back at the Zinfandel House, at breakfast that morning, one of the guests raised their champagne and cranberry in a toast: “May this be the last sober breath you take!” And I’ll be darned if it wasn’t!

Wineries somewhat selfishly restrict their hours to a measly 7 or 8 per day, as if they have a life, or families or something, so wanting to get the most out of the limited “visiting” hours in the valley, we started early, after having established our game/battle/drinking plan for the day:

We had the list of the wineries we most wanted to stop at (and that we could get into), and added a couple that George and Bette. We marked them on the map, considered the traffic, and set out, planning to start at the south end of the valley, and working our way back north.

The first stop was a winery that we had never heard of, and that George arranged for us: Jarvis Cellars (www.jarviswines.com)  turned out to be one of the greatest finds!

Located at the extreme southwest end of the valley, Jarvis is the highest elevation winery in Napa, located way up off Monticello Road. When we pulled up, there was no sign of a winery, other than a magnificent vineyard. There were no buildings visible at all. After announcing ourselves at the gate, we followed the signs to the “parking meadow,” which was really a meadow. Still no winery.

We followed the brick path–the “Yellow Brick Road,” my wife said, and headed toward the mountain. We rounded the curve, and there, cut into the very bedrock of the mountain was a giant parabolic door, with “Jarvis” carved into the rock overhead.

Once inside, we joined up with the other 8 lucky folks, and were met by our cheerful guide.

Nothing unusual, so far, right? Well, let me tell ya…

The ENTIRE winery is located inside the mountain! Everything! They used giant tunnel digging machines from England to create the magnificent hallways and caverns, all built around the streams and waterfalls running inside the mountain.

Every barrel of their ultra-premium wine is no more than 100 paces from winemaker Dimitri Tchelistcheff’s office. Dimitri is the son of Andre’, widely reputed as the “Godfather” of Napa wine making, and is a legend in his own right.

The attention to detail is amazing: the bathrooms have fiber-optic lights, and the women’s has more stalls than I have ever seen. To get to the tasting room, you cross the stream on stepping stones… all in all, an amazing feat of engineering.

They also have a ballroom that seats hundreds of people, where they host several annual events to benefit arts in the area, including the Jarvis’ own school of Spanish Opera.

During our tasting, William Jarvis came in and chatted with us (as a side note, I’ve been to the winery three times, and he has stopped by on all three occasions) about his wines and his other projects.

This is a stop not to be missed, and it became my second wine club. I joined the “Inner Circle” club first, which allowed you to get credit for bottle of Jarvis you bought at a wine shop or even a restaurant! With that, you get a variety of perks, including tickets to the ball. I also joined the regular wine club, which offers rare and amazingly elegant creations, many of which are only for their members.

Jarvis is highly recommended, and you won’t go wrong in gifting a bottle of their “Lake William” to any wine lover!

Tomorrow, we start down the dusty wine roads north along the Silverado Trail!

Until then,

Cheers,

WCI

California Wine, Fine Wine, USA Wine, Wine Cellar, Wine Club, Wine Club Gift, Wine Education, Wine Lovers, Wine Tasting, Wine Tours Napa, wine clubs, wine tastings, Wineries

WCI back ‘atcha!

So, my friends, I had my two wine clubs, and was getting a whopping four bottles per month, of which I drank twenty… how’d I come up with that math?

Well, like any good aspiring wine fanatic, I was diligently working toward my “bottle-per-day” minimum quotient. I was starting to spend some serious coin on vino, and loved every bit of it! I had found a couple of very nice, affordable “everyday” wines from Parducci (www.Parducci.com) and Mondavi (www.robertmondavi.com), and started “collecting” the good wines from my wine clubs…

Clubs, you say? Ah, you are an astute reader!

I soon found that wine collecting was nearly as fun as wine drinking, and turns out I had a bit of a knack for it.

How did I decide which clubs to join? Simple… I went to Napa to audition them in person!

Yes, indeed. A couple of months later, just as Spring was springing, I landed in San Francisco, rented a charming mid-size, and headed north along 101 for my first real visit to the “Magic Valley.”

I’d done a little investigating in terms of lodging, and had settled on a great little B&B just south of Calistoga along Hwy. 29. The Zinfandel House (www.zinfandelhouse.com) was and is owned by George and Bette Starke, and is a charming, eclectic house high on the western hills above Three Palms Vineyard, with an awe-inspiring view.

George had been the owner and winemaker at Napa Cellars in the late seventies and early eighties, and was one of Robert Mondavi’s closest friends. He also made one of the finest wines I have ever tasted, the 1980 Napa Cellars Cab.

George and Bette also led the first-ever American wine tour to France, where they toured and tasted at some of the most famous wine chateaus in the world, long before they were closed to the public. Can you imagine drinking ’45 Mouton, or ’28 Margaux right from the cellar?

We started a friendship that lasts to this day, and they helped set my itinerary, and in large part, were my mentors as I discovered the joys of Napa and Sonoma.

At our first breakfast, we discussed the wineries I should visit, and George made some calls to get me in to a few wineries not as well known, or a little harder to get into, and for three days, I lived in wine buyer’s heaven.

Stay tuned for a wine weekend of a lifetime when we meet again tomorrow, and continue tripping down the dusty wine roads.

Cheers,

WCI

California Wine, Fine Wine, USA Wine, Vineyards, Vintage Wine, Wine Cellar, Wine Club, Wine Club Gift, Wine Education, Wine Lovers, Wine Tasting, Wine Tours bed and breakfasts, Napa, wine club gifts, wine clubs, Wine Education, Wine Tours