Leading up to our trip to Northern California last weekend, I was feeling pretty confident about my wine knowledge. I mean, come on, I’m a Blackwell for goodness sake. We don’t mess around with our vino. So on that first day when we drove from San Francisco into Napa, I got giddy watching the landscape change from skyscrapers to vineyards.
After eating lunch, Chris and I drove to our first winery right outside of town and were eager to wet our pallets and test our skills. And because there are about a billion different wineries in the Napa Valley, I decided that the Madonna Estate would be our first tasting. Because I love Madonna.
And after we rolled into the tasting room and made friends with the lady behind the bar, she suggested the more simple tasting. Maybe it was because I kept telling her how much I loved Madonna.
She poured the first tastes, and immediately Chris and I kicked them back and enjoyed the wine-goodness. I mean, at this point in our trip we had already been traveling for about 15 hours straight already and were in desperate need of a recharge. And after licking our glasses clean, the pourer laughed and said, Well, I was gonna ask you to smell it and pick up the peppery-notes. But that way works too.
And after we woofed down the next few tastes, we walked back to our car and realized how completely out of league we were. I can only describe it as if we were given two front row seats to the Superbowl, but were unaware of any of the players and also didn’t know the rules of the game. So, we got back to our B&B and studied the playbook.
And then the next morning, completely rested and refueled, we got our map and hit the road.
Our first stop, Arger-Martucci, was a tiny boutique-style vineyard that the B&B owners recommended. It was pretty informal, and the girl who waited on us was from Northern Illinois, so we were able to shoot straight with her from the start. We let the reds breathe, tested them for legs and took healthy sniffs. And then we had our first tastes and let the grape-goodness roll around our tongues so we could pick up all of the exotic aftertastes. I mean, I had no idea the depth of which these wines can taste. We smelled a cabernet that reminded us of jalapenos, and also tasted chardonnays that melted like butter in our mouths. It was fabulous. I’ll take a delicious wine tasting before noon any day of the week. And we felt pretty confident in our performance after we left with our preferred bottle of wine.
So then we jumped in our ride and took off down Highway 29 and stumbled upon a castle. Yep, a CASTLE. Kinda hard to miss. So of course we had to check it out, but after we realized it was a lengthy tour and drawn-out process to get to the vino, we skipped the tasting and just took in the scenery.
Our next stop was just off the infamous Silverado Trail, where the wineries were lined up right next to each other, all spouting intriguing, familiar names and lots and lots of grapes in their front yards. And just like the way we stumbled upon the Madonna Estate, I chose our next adventure based on the title: Chateau Montelena. Because anyplace with the word Chateau in it sounds like a good place to drink wine. And it just so happened that the winery we stumbled upon was the same one featured in an indie flick we had watched and were talking about during the trip, Bottleshock. Which, if you haven’t seen it, is a pretty good movie. It chronicles the story of the Chateau Montelena competing in a French wine competition in the late 1970s and essentially putting Napa Valley wine on the map.
And not only was it an entertaining movie, but the wine was the absolute best wine we had ever tasted. Just perfect.
And we weren’t the only ones that were bowing down before these particular barrels, as a group of people next to us, who were obviously high-rollers, continued to buy cases on cases of the delicious nectar on the spot. Which prompted the pourer to open some vintage, uber-expensive bottles of wine, and since we were close to and talking with these rich, wine lovers we got to scam a few glasses of a cabernet that made fireworks explode in our mouths. Yea for freeloading!
The obligatory spit cup... Yeah right!
And after all of that wonderfulness, we decided to stop while we were ahead and go to lunch, where I proceeded to squash my morning wine-buzz with a gigantic meatball sub. Oh, the food in that area was just as good as the wine. But I’ll have to save that for another post.
