9 Wineries in 2 Days
Chugging wine like a Steinbeck character all afternoon can slow you down the next day, so on the second day of our Napa trip yesterday we were all dragging a bit until lunch. We shuffled around Oxbow Market, then drove up the valley to see Castello di Amorosa. While a perfectly recreated medieval castle – complete with moat, drawbridge and dungeon – is stunning, laying claim to views of all of Napa Valley from on top of a high hill, we found it over-produced.
Napa draws big, gawdy monuments to the egos of tech millionaires. And while they're great at bringing in the tourists (Castello was crowded on a rainy Monday in winter), they're not quite as focused on making wine as some of the other wineries.
After that, we took our picnic lunch from Model Bakery to Bothe State Park and rejuvenated ourselves with orzo salad, grilled veggies, complimentary cheese nabbed from the hotel we stayed at the night before, and a fresh baguette.
We'd made an appointment at Larkmead for after lunch, and it turned out to be one of our favorites. We were the only four visitors in the small, cozy tasting room. There were t-shirts for sale, no decorative wine stoppers or Zinfandel-flavored mustards. The pourer came out to greet us, and told us, in his soft, folksy voice, a 10-minute story for each of three, big red wines.
As he exaplained his theory of enjoying wine, he said to the three of us, "You all already understand this: you have to slow down, take the time out of your day to see a beautiful moment when it presents itself, and come up here to appreciate each other."
We said nothing, but our eyebrows went up. Appreciate each other? That felt a little too honest. We spent most of the weekend trading dirty jokes at the expense of each other's mothers. On the drive back, it was all too easy to turn "I appreciate you!" into a sarcastic cry that meant "I've been in the car with you too long!"
But as we left Napa behind, and the bridge came into view, honesty prevailed and we all mumbled how lucky we were to have such good friends. How we really do appreciate every moment we spend together. Especially the ones toasting the sunset from this hills overlooking mile after rolling mile of California wine country.
