We had no grand plan, other than to see where the day took us, directed somewhat by the recommendations of the nice lady at the visitor center. Our first stop was Benziger Winery, which was flat out beautiful. We only had about three hours before the wineries began to close for the night, so we opted not to take the hour long tram tour of the grounds, though in hindsight, maybe we should have done it. I'm not sure we found another spot nearly as beautiful. Bonus, the wine was good! We had an enthusiastic and friendly wine guy telling us all about the wines, and every single pour was terrific. It pained me to pour some of the tastings out, but the pours were generous, and someone had to drive.
THe next stop was a place called Arrowwood, which at first appeared a little stuffy but actually was fantastic. The view was great, the wine guy encouraged us to take our time and enjoy some of the pours on the covered porch if we liked. Surprisingly, we both loved a Viognier, which was surprising not in that it was a good wine but because we both tend to favor reds. That Viognier was the only bottle we ended up buying the entire trip.
After that, it was right down the hill to Imagery Winery, which is the sister winery to Benziger. Where Benziger was more traditional, Imagery was more experimental. They even boasted a small art gallery to showcase the artist-commissioned wine labels for each bottle. Unfortunately, the wines were rather underwhelming. Not bad, just nothing that knocked our socks off.
We ended the evening at our little hotel in Calistoga, where we wandered a bit and found a nice dinner.
The next day, we took a short, impromptu hike up a hill and were rewarded with wonderful views of the town. After a quick stop at a winery in a converted gas station, we headed to Napa Valley, expecting a similar experience to the day before. We were surprised at the different tenor of the area. Where Sonoma was hilly, Napa was flat. Where Sonoma had interesting-looking wineries all throughout the area, Napa wineries all looked somewhat the same from the road. Where Sonoma wineries welcomed anyone, anytime during operating hours, many Napa wineries were by appointment only.
We did finally find an interesting place called Darioush, run by a Persian man named, wait for it, Darioush, and modeled after a palace. That place was fascinating. The staff clearly loves their boss, and no one blinked when we asked to share a tasting (rather than pay $40 each when most of one of the pours was going to go into the spit bucket, due to, you know, driving). Bonus, the wine was good, because of course it was. It's Napa.
We then found an Italian-style winery called Luna where the wines were slightly less sophisticated though still quite enjoyable and the sweet wine lady seemed genuinely surprised and touched when we left a tip.
Then, dinner at a French resteraunt in downtown Napa, where I was thoroughly confused by the fact that all of the house wines were French. We were in downtown freaking Napa and not one of the house wines was from Napa?
Our quiet rebellion to this was in each ordering a Napa (non-house) wine.
Overall, we both preferred Sonoma to Napa. The scenery is more varied and frankly, more beautiful, the people are more welcoming, the wineries have some variety and there's none of this by appointment only crap. We were surprised to not find a winery pouring zinfindel, and if we did this again, both of us would concentrate on the Russian River Valley. A lot of zin comes out of there, plus I have yet to try a Russian River Valley wine of any type that I didn't really like.
No comments:
Post a Comment