Another day that didn’t go exactly as planned but that came out just fine anyway.

The unplanned part that was really great was breakfast from Starbucks that daughter Rebecca provided. What a nice and thoughtful Mother’s Day treat! It took the pressure off finding a place to eat on our way to our scheduled 10:30 meet-up in Napa.

The trip from the St. Francis to Yountville took a little over an hour, passing over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Judy and I like wine, enjoy wine tastings and have done them all over the world – New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Virginia, the Finger Lakes, and probably a bunch I’ve forgotten. But we’re not wine connoisseurs. We know what we like but don’t make a science or art of evaluating wines and we don’t remember names of vineyards or their products. Judy likes sweet wines like Rieslings and dessert wines. I like just about anything; my pallet is very accommodating and undiscriminating.

Our objective today was to experience Napa Valley, sample some wines, stock up for the coming summer at Onawa and to have a much more relaxing and laid-back day than yesterday’s forced march from one end of San Francisco to the other.

Our strategy: 1. Consult with niece Amy who knows her wine stuff inside and out. She gave us a list of hotels and wineries to visit. She also recommended hiring a car and driver to take us on the tour. 2. We did as Amy suggested, having the hotel arrange for Manny to do the driving. I gave him Amy’s list. I must confess I didn’t give him the list until two days before our arrival.

Manny, in his infinite wisdom, I’m sure, set us up with three entirely different wineries plus a stop for lunch. And we didn’t ride with Manny. His guy Kara was behind the wheel of the Mercedes SUV. Kara has an interesting story. His other gig is selling Turkish rugs (he’s from Turkey). He used to work on cruise boats in the restaurant operations. He was recently in charge of Mediterranean restaurant but quit to be near his pregnant fiancée.

The first stop, Reverie II, had little in the way of sweet wines but was interesting in other respects. It’s an operation that originated when a New York investment banker and wine connoisseur convinced his firm to invest in several Napa Valley wineries, creating a large holding operation in California. The banker went on to set up his own vineyard that he sold to a Chinese hotel operation who needed his real estate. He started yet another vineyard, Reverie II, which he then transferred to his business employee. I’m guessing that that’s a familiar story in Napa: wine lovers start, buy and sell properties willey-nilley. The nice thing about this visit was a Kawasaki Mule ride up the hill for a nice view as we sampled another wine.

Napa Valley shows the effects of recent fire damage. A fire in October of 2020 encroached on the Reverie II property. Other fires in 2017 caused even more widespread damage elsewhere in the valley. In general, the eastern hills that define Napa Valley are burned. The western hills not.

Lunch was pleasant at Sam’s Social Club. We’ve fallen in a rut: we had crab cakes benedict for the second day in a row. The temperature got to the low 80s today and the air circulation where we were sitting was poor, so we got pretty warm.

I texted Manny complaining of the lack of sweet wines at our first stop. Be careful of what you ask for: he redirected our second stop to the Prager Port Wine operation, a family-owned winery that has Judy as it’s target market. Having been exposed to Port wine in Portugal, we had some idea of what Port wine should taste like. At least one version passed our test as did a late vine Riesling. We sampled in the shade and relaxed. No great vistas to photograph but a very laid-back way to spend a couple of hours.

Stop three was at the Sattui vineyard, a much larger operation with a much broader selection of wines. Judy did four sweet wines while I tasted five reds. Again, not being an expert, we can’t swear that this is the best wine to flow from Napa, but they tasted just fine to us.

Net result: a pleasant day in beautiful weather and beautiful scenery and a stock of wine to serve at Onawa. Stop by for a glass this summer! Next time we’re dragging Amy along to do it right.

Napa is, if nothing else, expensive. Think gas for $4.25 per gallon and a 12-inch pizza for $32. Everything else is proportionally high. I won’t tell you how much we’re paying for our very nice room but Memorial Day weekend it’s going for $1,200 a night. We got an absolute bargain compared to that.

Speaking of pizza, we had a really great three onion pizza at Ciccio’s down the road from our hotel.

I’d tell you what the plan for tomorrow is but there isn’t one. At least I won’t have screwed up the arrangements this time. Judy is sitting next to me on the couch strategizing. So far, we’ve committed $8.50 for a 9:30 AM parking spot at Muir woods. After that, we’ll see.

Again, pictures are out of order. Look at them in reverse order – that’s closer to chronological then the other way!