Archived entries for
Napa > Goosecross
Second tour of the day was at Goosecross. This place was so small. We walked in and just… weren’t sure about it, but it ended up being really great. Hot, but great.
Our tour guide, checking the brix levels of the grapes on the vine. She was telling us how Napa was hit with some really rough weather this year, which later I heard could make for some incredible, intense wines (less grapes produced yields more concentrated flavours).
Mostly, these are just pretty:
Tour guide talking about harvest machines and the different processes for making white vs. red wine. I think that while we didn’t LEARN very much at this place, it was a pretty cool experience to have had.
Napa > Bubbles
Oh, I love sparkling wine.
We stopped at Mumm. And we became Magnum – owners. I wish I had a picture of the bottle to show you, but I think it’s pretty cool that we own one. (For those of you whose interests were piqued by my Magnum-Man reference a few days ago, a magnum is a larger wine bottle that holds two 750mls)
This was really cool. We tasted the different wines side by side, as tastings often are, but the waiter threw us a loop. We identified one wine as our favourite, and he brought us the exact same blend but from a magnum instead of a 750. It was incredible how different it tasted. I’ll say that I was humbled. Quite thoroughly, actually.
Napa > Merryvale
We don’t drink a lot of Californian wines, so we really hadn’t been very familiar with a lot of the vineyards in the area. There were some standbys, but some really great surprises. Among the later was Merryvale.
Merryvale did a tour / tasting that was two hours long. I was a little hesitant about spending 2 hours in one place, but it ended up being really awesome.
On the first part, the tour, we were led by a small, squirrelish looking man who turned out to be engaging and tremendously entertaining. I think we both leared quite a bit about the wine making process – as it was harvest time when we were there, we actually got to see the harvest / crushing machinery. Very neat. Rather similar to beer making, though I guess all large scale production facilities look the same.
The second part was the tasting, where we tasted the four elements of wine (acid, tannin, sugar, alcohol) alone, and then tried to identify them in different varietals. I love it when I learn new stuff about wine – this part was really cool.
Napa > the Beginning
I had a plan. A loose plan, for my OCD self, but a plan with times and calculations and… well, you would call it a schedule I suppose. The first vineyard we went to reminded me that plans need to be broken sometimes, and great stuff can come from stopping somewhere on the side of the road.
Okay. that “side of the road” was a castle. An actual… castle. I swear, it was on a hill and we couldn’t see it from the street.
We’re not talking… house with bricks-to-look-like-castle here. We’re talking about real, inspired by europe, structurally sound, castle. Incredible.
You saw right. That’s a moat.
Not to mention, their wines were *really* good. We brought home two bottles.