Raymond and Buena Vista Vineyards

It's time to return to wine country (at least on the blog). On our second day, the same day we did a barrel tasting at Westwood, we visited two of Jean-Charles Boisset's family vineyards. From what we saw, this guy must be quite a character! Our first stop was Raymond Vineyards, which we were excited to visit since we had a couple of their table Cabs at home and enjoyed them.

Biodynamic Farming at Raymond

Napa Valley with Visits to Cliff Lede and Behrens Family Winery

I was so excited to tell you all about our amazing lunch at Jordan Winery that I skipped ahead in our latest trip to California's wine country. Going back a bit, we actually left Boston at 7:30AM so that we were in San Francisco before noon on a Friday. After meeting our friends who were flying in from Chicago, we were off to Napa Valley for the first of many tastings. I still am so surprised that in only about an hour and a half from San Francisco, you can be tasting amazing wines in the middle of some beautiful surroundings.

We were so anxious to get started, I forgot my camera! source - Cliff Lede

Our first stop was Cliff Lede. Located in Yountville, the vineyard is surrounded completely by their own vines. I love when you can see where the grapes of the wine you are drinking are grown. Each vineyard is named for different classic rock songs - a love of the owner. Since it was so beautiful out, we got our first glasses in our tastings and went out on the beautiful patio to enjoy the sunshine and views of "Bohemian Rhapsody." This was a lovely first stop and really helped us settle into the wine tasting to come!

From Cliff Lede we headed towards St. Helena and climbed Spring Mountain Road, winding through the mountain until we found Behrens Family Winery. The winery is tucked back into the mountainside, which makes for spectacular views down into Napa Valley and across to Howell Mountain.

Views from Behrens Family Winery

Ad Hoc - Thomas Keller Napa Valley

When you think about food in Napa Valley, it's hard not to immediately think of Thomas Keller and the many restaurants he has in Yountville.  After deciding we were not ready to spend the money on an evening at French Laundry (too much wine to buy and other food to eat!), we made reservations at Keller's ad hoc.  ad hoc started as a temporary restaurant for the purposes of experimenting with different foods and dishes, but after such an amazing response from the guests, ad hoc became a permanent fixture in Yountville.  Open Thursday through Monday, there is a set four course tasting menu (about $50/person) that changes daily with some optional supplemental dishes (about $15).  One constant is the fried chicken served on Mondays - while we did not get to indulge, from what I hear it's pretty outstanding!

Bread!

After being seated, our server quickly brought us some bread.  I will say, I was not impressed with our server - I felt a bit rushed.  While the menu is a given, a little extra time and explanation would have gone a long way.  When we ordered, he basically only wanted to know if we wanted the wine pairing (I did) and if we wanted the supplemental side dish that evening (we did) and he was gone.  The rest of the staff - the runners and bussers - did not give off this same feeling and were more accommodating.

Bottega - Italian Cuisine in Napa

After biking our way through Calistoga and tasting plenty of wines during the day, we had a little recovery time before heading down to Yountville in time for our reservations at Michael Chiarello's Bottega.  When asking for Napa recommendations, this was one of Meghan's.  She knows California wine country well, and this was one of her top picks.

We arrived at Bottega a bit early for our reservation and were welcomed out onto their heated patio area for a drink.  There was a party next to us that had a great day tasting (including getting kicked out of a vineyard), and before we knew it they were joined by Top Chef alum Mike Isabella!  He is the blurry guy in the back of the photo below - I tried not to be too stalkerish, hence the bad photo!  He was in town tasting wines for his restaurants - not a bad way to travel!  After enjoying our cocktail and some very obvious people watching, our table was ready and we headed on in.

Cocktails (and Mike Isabella!)

JoLe - Tasting Menu in Calistoga

Traveling back in time to our visit Napa Valley, this week we will be discussing not just the wine but also the food!  Wine country has plenty of restaurants showcasing California cuisine at its best.  The hard part is selecting which restaurants to sample!  After heading up to Calistoga and settling into our hotel, we poked around downtown Calistoga and picked up our bikes for the next days' excursion.  While down there, we checked out a few of the restaurants suggested by the travel websites and ultimately settled on JoLe.

The restaurant is clean and contemporary with a wood fire grill working all night making bread and other deliciousness.  The husband and wife team of Matt and Sonjia Spector behind JoLe source the majority of their food from local farms and showcase the food each evening via a menu so wonderful and diverse that it was difficult to make any sort of decision!  Luckily, JoLe offers four, five or six course tasting menus with an optional wine pairing.  Nick and I both opted for the tasting menu, and I added the wine pairing - when in Rome, right?!  This way, we could split all the dishes and get the most out of our JoLe experience.  The following is a sampling of the amazing food we had.

Corn Fritter

Paloma Vineyards and Schramsberg Caves!

On our last day in Napa Valley we only had one appointment at 11:30, which we figured gave us time for a quick stop beforehand.  Having heard from our friends in San Francisco that Paloma Vineyards was supposed to have some great wines, we decided to give them a call the day before and make a reservation.  Like Kuleto, Paloma is up on a mountain, just on the opposite side of the valley.  As we climbed, the views just kept getting better.  After driving about 15 minutes, we arrived at Paloma.  At first, we thought we got the wrong directions because it was a house.  Shortly after getting out of the car, we were welcomed by Barbara, the owner of Paloma, who welcomed us into her home (literally).  We went straight out onto her deck, which had one of the best views.

From the decks of Paloma

More views...

Mumm Napa, Kuleto and Rubicon - Day 2 in Napa

After biking through Calistoga we were excited for a bit of an easier touring day!  Sadly, I forgot to grab my camera battery from the charger before we left for the day, so all of these photos are from my iPhone!!

Having read that Mumm Napa did free tours when they open at 10AM, we decided to head there first and hop on the tour, since we had heard great things about the vineyard.  The tour was informative, complete with a stop at a small group of grape vines, giving the guests a chance to taste the grapes that go into sparkling wine.  In addition, there was an amazing display of Ansel Adams' works (the ones you don't see on college students' walls), and they really are beautiful.  However, the tour was rather large as is the production facility itself.

Inside the production!

Biking through Calistoga - Napa Valley

Time to travel back in time a bit.  As regular readers will recall, Nick and I went to San Francisco back in September and then continued on to Napa Valley for a few days.  When we told people we were going to Napa we were given tons of great winery recommendations - I really had no idea how many wineries there were in such a small area!  Being super type-A, I took all of the suggestions and made charts based on location and tasting hours.  After some fun with Google Maps, I created a tentative itinerary, which only included three actual appointments over the 3 days of wine tasting.  This gave us enough of a plan to allow us to do all we wanted to do, but it had enough flexibility that we could change things up depending on what we saw and what recommendations we received during the day.

Along the bike trail in Calistoga

Heading to Napa Valley, and stops at Muir Woods and Sonoma Square

After three amazing days in San Francisco, it was time for Nick and I to head to Napa Valley for some wine tasting fun!  We left the city at around 10:30am and headed out over the Golden Gate Bridge in pursuit of some trees.

Over the bridge we go...

After heading down some very windy roads into a valley we descended into Muir Woods.

Road to Muir Woods