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Brian's quest to qualify for the Boston Marathon continued on Sunday, March 5th at the Napa Valley Marathon, and we decided to make a mini-vacation out of it. Can you think of a better way to reward yourself for running a marathon (or in my case... spectating at a marathon) than two days of wine tasting and relaxation in Napa Valley? We arrived in Napa after a LOOONG journey from LA, just in time for a fabulous meal at Bouchon, a restaurant owned by the same owners as the impossible-to-get-into "French Laundry." After a seafood tower and a few glasses of "pre-race" wine, we settled in for an early night in front of our gorgeous fireplace at the Vintage Inn in Yountville. We awoke at 430am on Sunday morning to cold temperatures and rain. As I dropped Brian off at the Vintage High School bus shuttle to the start line (No cars were allowed at the start line)...I did not envy him in any way. The race was a great success, with Brian's finish time [3:13:13] just three minutes away from the elusive 3:10 marathon qualifier for Boston. (A victory in anyone's eyes considering the pouring rain and strong winds.)
After long soak in a jacuzzi tub and a quick meal later, we headed out in the rain. We first visited the Chandon Winery, who specializes in what else...Champagne. We tasted some delicious bubbly and the headed out to meet a college friend of mine (and her one year old son Max!) She took us to tasting #2 at Domaine Carneros, where we sampled vino and caviar! Exhaustion set quickly however, and back to our cozy fireplace we went.
Rather than wander aimlessly from winery to winery for the entire trip, we opted for a guided tour on Monday. The Platypus Tour bus was full of fellow marathon runners, who we bonded with quickly after a few tastings of wine! The tour was was amazing, specializing in smaller, less-known wineries. Peju Provice was our first stop of the day, and included delicious wines and an amazing food-pairing in their on-site kitchen. Arger-Martucci was next on the tour, a small family-owned winery who gave their tastings right out of what appeared to be their kitchen. It was there that we had our first barrel tasting of a delicious petite syrah. We made a quick stop at Chateau Montelena, which we enjoyed for it's beauty despite their less-than-gracious hospitality. Our journey continued with a visit to Venge Vineyards, located in the renovated ghost winery of Rossini Ranch. We took a tour of their cellars, which consisted of 7000 square feet of excavated caves carved into Howell Mountain. We squeezed in one last stop at Markham Vineyards, which I couldn't recall the name of until I saw the 1/2 case of wine we purchased. We bid adieu to our new friends and headed back to the hotel. After a quick change of clothes, our car picked us up to take us to a delicious dinner at Greystone restaurant, the restaurant attached to the Culinary Institute of America. We tasted more amazing food and wine, headed home, and promptly collapsed into a deep sleep.
Tuesday morning we awoke to blue skies, but sadly, the end of our mini-vacation. So, in an effort to prolong our break, we headed out to check out a few wineries that we had missed. Our first, and most anticipated, stop was our appointment at Joseph Phelps. Their "2002 Insignia" wine was the #1 rated wine of the year last year, which we had tasted and fell in love with on our trip to Las Vegas. We got to taste it, as well as several other older vintages of the wine. It really was amazing. We had one of the most informative tastings I've ever been to, complete with instructions on how to do a three second and a ten second tasting, to get a feel of what the wine is really like. We pretended to understand, and went away with at least a little bit more knowledge than we started out with. We hit several other wineries as we left town, Frank Family, Vincent Arroyo, Robert Mondavi, and Opus One (a winery so elite, they only taste one wine...Opus One...which we purchased and plan to save for our 7th Wedding Anniversary!??)As we packed up the Opus one, we realized we had completely run out of room in our car, and took it as a sign that we should leave town before we did TOO much damage...We saw a lot, but can't wait to fill in the blanks on our next trip!!
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