California Wine Country Trip 2016-Napa

For the second year in a row, my wife, Vonda and I went with our friends to California Wine Country for a long weekend in late January. It’s a fantastic time to go (shhhh…don’t tell anyone!), because even though the vines are dormant, it’s still beautiful, the weather is mild-usually in the 60’s during the day, and, best of all…there’s nobody there! Tastings are easy to get, and you get lots of time and personal attention at the wineries. Hotel rates are about half of what they are in the fall, traffic is manageable, and restaurants are relatively easy to get in. It’s quickly becoming our favorite time of year to go.

Beautiful morning in Sonoma County

This time out, we had 2 full days, a Friday and Saturday, so we decided to spend one day in Napa Valley and one in Sonoma County, but in a place we hadn’t been before-the Russian River Valley, north of Santa Rosa. Everyone in the Bay Area seems to go to up to Wine Country for the weekend, so Napa, with its one main road, can be very very crowded on Saturdays and Sundays, even in the off-season. So we decided to go on Friday-good call.

We have a great friend who has close connections with many of the wineries and also has great taste in wine. He often hooks us up with some amazing tastings, and Friday was our day to enjoy his suggestions. When we go to Wine Country, we try to schedule 2 main tastings, with time in between for lunch and for one drop-in to any place that looks interesting or is recommended to us. Here’s a tip-whenever you finish a tasting, ask the host where else you should go. They often do tastings at other wineries to get ideas, and because most of them are wine lovers, and they also have friends at other places. Then we plan an early dinner so that we can get back to the hotel by 8 or 8:30.

Our itinerary for Friday in Napa was:

The Spire Collection at 10:00 in the Calistoga area (north Napa Valley, north of St. Helena)

Time for a quick lunch at Gott’s Roadside in St. Helena

Fantesca at 2:00 just west of St. Helena, on Spring Mountain

Time for a drop-in, which we did at Orin Swift‘s tasting room in downtown St. Helena

Dinner at Bouchon, the Research and Development kitchen for Chef Thomas Keller, who owns The French Laundry (one of the most prestigious and expensive restaurants in the U.S.).

This was an absolutely fantastic day, and I will share each stop along the way in the next few posts, over the next week

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Our room at the Kenwood Inn and Spa

One last thing-the hotel! We stayed once again at the Kenwood Inn, which we absolutely love. It was wonderful again, and I highly recommend it, particularly in the off-season, when it is around $250/night, as opposed to $600 and up in season. See my review from last year.

 

 

 

Sonoma and Napa trip-January 2015-Seavey Vineyard

After a very quick tasting at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, we made our last stop at Seavey Vineyard. This was a recommendation from our neighbors, who have been to Napa multiple times-it was their favorite. Seavey is straight east of St. Helena, and east of the Silverado Trail. It feels like it’s way out in the country, but is really only 10 minutes from town. The setting is very pastoral, and the first thing you see is the ruins of a very old stone farmhouse that looks like something out of a french novel. The property feels very much like a farm (a very nice one), which is a nice contrast to some of the more extravagant properties in Napa Valley. There are beautiful flowers everywhere, and the vineyards are wildly beautiful.

     Abandoned farmhouse at                      Seavey Vineyard

The Tasting Room

Seavey’s standard tasting is a sampling of their 4 main wines-Chardonnay, Merlot, their flagship Cabernet and the lower priced Caravina Cabernet, which Robert Parker called “perhaps the best second wine in all of Napa Valley.”  Their Cabernet routinely scores in the mid 90’s in all of the major wine publications. Our host at the private tasting ($25 each, waived with wine club membership) was a young lady who was really easy to converse with and who was very connected relationally with many other folks in the wine business. She had some great recommendations for restaurants, wineries for our next trip out, etc. She was delightful, and very low-pressure, which I appreciate. The tasting room is small and homey.

                         Seavey Vineyard

The Wines

I have to admit that at this point, we were a bit wine-fatigued, having done 3 tastings already that day, with lots of really big Cabs, (including a quick stop at the new Delectus tasting room), so I don’t think we enjoyed the wine as much as we would have had we started at Seavey. But they were all really, really good, particularly the Cabernet Sauvingnons, which were very smooth and complex. My wife and her friend Jesse enjoyed the Caravina as much, if not more, than the flagship Cabernet (which was my favorite). The Merlot drank like a Cab (a good thing for me), and the Chardonnay was the best we had all day. We will be getting some Seavey wine in March or April, and I can’t wait to taste it again with a fresher palate. This was a great end to our day, and to the winery portion of our trip. After a wonderful dinner at Mustards Grill near Yountville, we headed back to our retreat at the Kenwood Inn and Spa.

                           Cave at Seavey

Seavey Vineyard

Winery/Tasting Room-92 points

Wines-94 points

Sonoma and Napa trip review-January 2015-Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars

After a quick (and awesome) lunch at Gott’s Roadside in St. Helena, we jumped on the Silverado trail and headed down to Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. There are two Stag’s Leap wineries (the wine-growing region, or appellation, is called Stag’s Leap), and they are not connected, so you have to make sure you know which one you’re actually going to. This is the one with the history. If you spend any time in Napa, you’ll hear about the 1976 Judgment of Paris, at which 2 California wines, 1973 Stag’s Leap S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, went head to head with the best of the best French wines and won. This is generally considered to be the singular event that put California wines on the map and had a huge economic impact on Napa Valley.

Tasting Room

Stag’s Leap has a brand new tasting room, and it is a stunning stone structure, with huge windows overlooking the famed vineyards that produced the famous wine. It is very impressive, and stands way out from other tasting rooms we’ve visited. However, when you visit wineries, you find that some (like Kelham and Lasseter) are made for a smaller, more intimate experience, and others (Duckhorn, Stag’s Leap, Etude) are built more for crowds, and have a more touristy feel. If you want to get in and out fast and taste great wine, the latter is a better choice, but if you want to linger and hear the stories and meet the artists involved in the winemaking, the smaller feel is for you. Stag’s Leap is definitely built for crowds. We tend to prefer a longer, more intimate experience, but we only had 30 minutes before we had to be on the road, so this worked perfectly for us.

    Stag’s Leap Reserve Tasting                             Menu

The Wines

The four of us stood at a small round table and ordered our Estate Collection Tasting Flight ($40, complimentary for higher end club members), and were hosted by a young man who had clearly been trained well in his presentation. We tasted four wines (in reverse order, with my ratings):

• 2010 CASK 23 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon-96 points (it should be at $225!)
• 2011 S.L.V. Estate Cabernet Sauvignon-92 points
• 2011 FAY Estate Cabernet Sauvignon-94 points
• 2013 ARCADIA VINEYARD Chardonnay-90 points

    Our Stag’s Leap Wine Flight

The chardonnay was very nice, more subtle than most California chardonnays-oaky, but not too much so, with a nice crispness. The 3 Cabs were all excellent-big, robust, powerful Cabs that clearly will be even better after a few years of cellaring. These are all between $110 and $225 a bottle, way too expensive for us, but well worth the $40 fee.

The S.L.V., the same wine that won the Judgment of Paris, was surprisingly our least favorite, although still quite good. The Cask 23, which was double the price of the other, was the best of the 3, and was a close second to the Kelham Reserve Cab for the best wine we tasted on the trip. If I had the money, it would probably be worth buying a bottle and putting it away for 10 years. The Fay, the cheapest of the 3 Cabs, was remarkable-it has that typical Napa Cab taste that Vonda and I love-powerful initial taste-fruity and tannic and oaky all at once, complex flavors in the middle with a long, lingering finish. This wine would be amazing in 5 years with a big juicy steak or braised short rib, but is also very drinkable now. 2011 was a rough growing year for Napa Valley, and the red wines suffered pretty significantly, but this one defied the odds. We bought 2!

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars

Winery/Tasting Room-92 points

Wines-94 points

Sonoma and Napa trip review-January 2015-Lasseter Family Winery

The Wineries

We only had two days, and we decided to spend one afternoon in Sonoma Valley and one day in Napa Valley.

        Barrel room at Lasseter

We drove up from SFO Airport over the Golden Gate Bridge (the only way to go if traffic isn’t nuts!) and went right to one of our favorite wineries. I hesitate to write about it, because it is a hidden gem, and we hope it stays that way! Imagine if Walt Disney was still alive and owned a winery. That’s Lasseter Family Winery. Just north of the peaceful town of Glen Ellen, LFW is owned by Nancy and John Lasseter. John, the director of Toy Story and Cars, among other classic films, is this generation’s Walt Disney. He is the Chief Creative Officer at both Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, and is also over creative at Disney’s Theme Parks.

   The “Tank Room” at Lasseter

And the Lasseters’ winery has that same kind of wonder and whimsy, with a story behind every wine. Focusing primarily on Rhone style blends (which would be like Chateauneuf du Pape, Gigondas and Cotes du Rhone, if you like French wines), made by winemaker Julia Iantosca, the Lasseters make wines that they love to drink. The winery sits on the Lasseters’ property, and tastings are by appointment only, in a lovely tasting room, with a beautiful view of the vineyards. We tasted 4 wines, with cheese pairing, and they were all wonderful. Our favorites were the Grenache blend, Chemin De Fer (French for railroad, one of John Lasseter’s passions-there is a working steam engine on property that is rarely seen) and L’Ame du Sage, an old vine Zinfandel. The flagship Cabernet blend Paysage is also really good. If you love Orin Swift wines like The Prisoner, you will probably love Lasseter wines. This was our third visit, and it’s been great every time!

        Tasting at Lasseter Family Winery

Lasseter Family Winery

Winery-93 points

Wines-93 points

Sonoma and Napa trip review-January 2015-hotels

My wife and I recently went out to the Bay Area for a weekend with our friends. We were there for a charity event in San Francisco, but took the opportunity to visit some wineries and stay up in Sonoma County for a couple of days. In the next few days, I’ll share some thoughts from our trip. Today, I’ll start with where we stayed.

The Hotels

While we were up in Wine Country, we stayed in an amazing place called the Kenwood Inn and Spa. It is a 30 year old property that looks and feels like a 200 year old complex in Tuscany. The rooms are huge, with a fireplace in every one, marble bathrooms, a private outdoor sitting area in most of them, and amazing views of the surrounding vineyards. It is located about two miles north of the little town of Glen Ellen, which is home to some great restaurants and shops. There are 30-40 wineries within a short drive of the inn.

          Kenwood Inn and Spa

The highlight for us was breakfast. It was included in the room, and we walked down the stairs, through the courtyard to the restaurant. There was a fireplace inside and one outside, a great selection of continental items already laid out, and a chef on site ready to cook anything on the menu, or not on the menu, as it turned out. I had a Humboldt Fog (goat cheese) and bacon omelette, with a side of really thick, perfectly cooked bacon, and it was amazing! OK, that doesn’t sound like a regular guy breakfast, but he suggested it and I went for it. Glad I did!

               Breakfast at Kenwood Inn

The service at the Kenwood Inn was great from start to finish, and I couldn’t recommend it more. January is a great time to visit California Wine Country, because the crowds are much smaller, the stress level is lower, and the people at the wineries are able to spend a lot more time with you. And it’s cheaper! We got 2 nights for the price of one at Kenwood Inn, which made it about $500 for the 2 nights, plus taxes and fees. That’s an amazing price for the quality of this hotel. And the weather in mid-January was great. It was sunny and in the low to mid 60’s during the day while we were there-very comfortable weather for walking through the vineyards.

        Our room at Kenwood Inn and Spa

After 2 nights up in Kenwood, we drove back down to San Francisco, where our event was. I got a hotel through the Express Deals section on Priceline, and it turned out to be the Omni San Francisco, which is ranked by TripAdvisor.com as the #2 ranked hotel in San Francisco. We got the room for $148 for the night, which was $50 less than the best rate we could find anywhere else. The Omni is a beautifully restored old hotel in the heart of the SOMA area, not too far from Fisherman’s Wharf or really, anywhere else in downtown San Francisco-very centrally located. There is a Bob’s Steak and Chop House in the lobby, which gave us a little taste of Dallas! We had appetizers there after the event. Whenever I stay at a hotel through Priceline, I ask at check-in if they have any upgraded rooms available for a fee, and often I get incredible rooms that way at a fraction of the cost. This time when I asked, they upgraded us at no charge to the top floor. The rooms were decent size, and the view was wonderful. There was nothing special about the room itself, but it was normal 4 star quality. Again, a great room for that price in downtown San Francisco, which is one of the most expensive cities to stay in. This was not quite at the level of the Kenwood Inn, but was very nice, nonetheless. The lobby is gorgeous and the service was excellent.

                      Omni San Francisco

Ratings:

Kenwood Inn and Spa-97 points (out of 100)

Omni San Francisco-93 points

Bob’s Steak and Chop House-90 points

Welcome to RegularWineGuy.com!

I’m a regular guy. I love wine. Do you ever read wine reviews and feel stupid? Do you feel like you would be unable to tell the difference between “mineral notes” and music notes? I feel like I need a master’s degree to understand what they’re talking about, and every time I go to Costco or Spec’s, I feel unworthy to even choose a wine, like a wine critic is going to come out of a hidden closet, looking and sounding like Anton Ego from Ratatouille, and chastise me for my ignorance.

But I know what I like, and I think, probably like you, that I actually have a decently developed palate. And I have a lot of friends who love wine and know what they love to drink. And we love to compare notes and share our favorite wines and the stories behind them with each other.

I just completed my WSET Level 2 training and just started level 3, and I’ve learned so much! My goal with this site is to take what I’m learning and translate it into “regular guy speak”, to demystify the sometimes overwhelming world of wine and bring some simplicity and focus to it, ultimately so that you can enjoy the wine you drink on a deeper level.

Wine is a passion for me, because it is almost spiritual. There is something magical about a great wine, paired with great food, combined with great company. It brings a richness to life and relationships. My wife and I also love to visit vineyards. Life can be spectacularly stressful, but taking a walk through a vineyard, then sitting together sipping a new discovery while we take in the beauty around us…it brings peace and perspective.

So this blog is going to be for anyone who enjoys wine, from the casual novice to the passionate wine lover. I’ll be sharing some of my favorite wineries and wines with you, notes from wine tasting trips we take, learnings from my ongoing wine education and an occasional blind tasting. And hopefully, next time you go into a wine shop or order online, you’ll feel like you know more of what you’re doing, and you’ll enjoy some great moments with great people over some amazing bottles of wine.