Corks, Dogs and Goats: Turning 40 in Napa

Local grape stompers call the Silverado Trail, a beautiful winding two-lane that juts up the Napa Valley, "the road less traveled" in order to entice you toward it. I think they do that to keep you off I-29, the road they travel to get to and from work and home. Either way, when we spilled onto it from the Oak Knoll cut across, we felt like we'd found the secret passage into wine heaven...

You only turn 40 once in your life, after that, you just turn 39 until you look 60. Then, you just turn and hope people don't notice. Turning 40 was cause enough for our friend Liz to ask four more of us to join her and her husband Courtney on an adventure into Napa. I jumped at the chance mostly because I've been promising my wife an anniversary trip (15) since our anniversary (last September), but also because I needed some culture in my life. I've never really been a big "try new stuff" kind of guy, so the prospect of dropping everything and drifting along the coastal grapevines in search of newness sounded refreshing for the old psyche...

I figured Napa would be like Jackson Hole or Vail, where the locals tolerate you long enough for you to pay for your lodging, then begin to ignore you unless you're holding a Benjamin to pay for your muffin and coffee (and to give you the $9 in change.) I expected the wineries to be crowded, crammed with dorks like me who asked stupid questions and can only pretend to understand the answers. I expected the wine to kind of bore me, and that the grapes wouldn't fit their way into my memory as they are lifeless fruit with little to offer aside from hanging there. I expected repetition from the winemakers and tour guides...that each would be French and ask us hicks from Missourah exactly when we'd be leaving town, so that they could mark their calendars for the big "We have our town back party".

Luckily, I was dead wrong on every account.

Our pilot on arrival day was Albert, who at the ripe age of 44 was the senior member of the group. He spoke in a knowing and Patriarchal tone that earned him the nickname "Daddy" for the rest of the trip. As Daddy pointed the minivan north, he and Courtney commanded we see the ocean near Half Moon Bay. Good choice, it turns out, as we wouldn't otherwise have seen it aside from the Alcatraz view-stop on the north side of the Golden Gate. We hiked down a 50 foot cliff to dip our toes and feel coastal, and it was just blustery enough to fill our noses with a chill and turn our toes blue in the lapping surf. We had a nice lunch and then headed to Napa...I was feeling California and looking Minnesota.

Traffic? None. It was a Thursday afternoon and we were terribly fortunate to move freely up the 101 with good music and the wind blaring simultaneously. We checked in to the Marriot Resort and Spa in Napa, which I recommend for their hot tub, location right off 29, and reasonable price. They also have a free wine "tasting" from 5:30 to 6:30 every night in which the lobby begins to resemble the stock market trading floor until the last bottle is uncorked. They serve free Starbucks each morning from 6:30-7:30 as well, and near as I can tell, gave away about 6 cups of coffee the entire time we were there. People like to take it easy in Napa.

Wineries open at 10 and close at 5 in the Valley. You see, these people don't just work there...they sometimes live there and always entertain during the day, which oftentimes means that they enjoy the fruits of their labor alongside the guests. Try drinking wine all day and starting your work day at 8:00...

We muddled over our nearly 600 choices of where to go and scoured recommendations from friends (big thanks to all that gave us tips). The biggest lesson I learned in Napa: Nothing anyone tells you means anything. No tips were 100% guranteed to be great. Everyone had a story and an opinion. Timing was critical to your enjoyment of a venue. Every person we met had been somewhere other than where we had been. In a three day trip, there is simply too much to choose from to even plan, so we chose to drift until we hit the spot that looked right. We never made a bad choice except to listen to the concierge on Thursday night, who sent us to eat at Celadon, a pricey and plain restaraunt that was just a little too full of itself. Good calamari, rough on the pocket book. We ordered a $35 dollar bottle of Canyon Force Caberbet and without knowing it, got served a bottle of Wild Horse Cheval. When the bill came and we saw a slight price difference, ($35 vs. $105...) I felt like a tourist. Luckily, they took responsibility for the error (force, horse...it's all the same) and that's where the bad stuff ended for the trip.

Friday was Liz's birthday and we got our first taste of the country. Taking the Silverado north, we first went into Stag's Leap, a big and beautiful building that had just opened when we walked in. They gave us some wine and the tip to go see Pine Ridge and Casa Nuestra, which is exactly what we did.

Our sommelier at Stag's Leap gave us the most in depth training course of the week. Eric taught us about "Bud Break" (the initial flowering of the grape) and that we were in town to witness the first of it. He also taught us about the goats wandering the vineyard, hired specifically to ensure organic eradication of the Blue Green Sharpshooter Aphids that destroy the vines. He also made all three of the redheads in our group dizzy. He was a good looking dude, I guess, but they all called him "Cute Eric" to his face. It was 11:00 and they were already buzzing. Rookies.

Casa Nuestra was our next stop and it was fantastic. 2500 cases of wine a year...no distribution. Buy it there or order it online. The first two stops made you feel small, with enormous tanks and vaulted ceilings...Casa Nuestra made you feel like you'd walked into someone's cabin. Technically, it was much smaller that a cabin, but more quaint. Grateful Dead posters and Elvis memorabilia covered the walls, along with an award plaque for "Napa's Most Dog Friendly Winery"... which turns out to be a monumental achievement as dog's are revered here the way cows are in India. One fat black lab had a collar with the ominous warning "NO FOOD" written in marker across it. He followed us the whole hour and a half we spent there, hoping I'd slip up and give him some scooby snacks.

I give Casa five stars for the hospitality, great wine and no self-absorptive bullshit attitude. We all bought wine from them, which is exactly why the little wineries have to put really good and genuine people at the forefront. Stephanie Trotter was our host, and she let us drink from the barrel with a big extractor that looked like a turkey baster...she was the only one who encouraged us to take our glass from the tasting room to the tour. Awesome. We did not have an appointment anywhere we went, and even though they generally like to know you are coming for staffing purposes, nobody turned us away. Napa people are extremely accommodating.

We scooted up to Dutch Henry winery next, enjoyed a taste and the company of three Airedales and two cats as our boorish English wine guide talked about the fact he only missed pub crawls and all day drinking from his days across the pond. The girls were getting tipsy now, so made our way into Oakville by cutting across Rutherford to hit Taylor's Automatic Refresher. Taylor's looks a lot like someone built a Sonic fifty years ago, then abandoned it until that morning. We were warned to get there before noon, and luckily did, just in time to spend $30 on two of the best burgers money can buy. Go to Taylor's Automatic Refresher when you go to Napa.

Moving north again, we wandered Calistoga and had a beer with the locals, window shopped and soaked in the afternoon sun, then retreated back down the Silverado to squeeze in one last bottle before the big birthday dinner. Liz wanted to have a drink on the balcony of Auberge de Soleil for the view, which was dizzying and terrific. We were totally out of place and most of cars in the parking lot have an MSRP equalling my mortgage, but it was worth it.

Birthday dinner was awesome at Don Giovanni's, where dogs and cats roamed the restaurant as well. We partied at the hotel afterward and ended up meeting some of the most interesting people on the trip in the hot tub each night. There really are no inhibitions after good wine and when you know you'll never see someone again, so I can't fault the girl from Duluth who told us that she "only wished I had the body for porn, since I think getting paid to get laid is a great idea." More power to you, uncensored girl from Duluth.

We started slow Saturday, hitting a bit of a wall from the 1:00 am PACIFIC shut down the night before. The best advice I can offer in this department is to pace yourself, eat any free bread they offer, have a glass of water for every taste of wine and eat meals. Then my friend, you are golden. Also, try a little hair of the grape that bit you, which is exactly what we did at PlumpJack, the Starbucks of wineries. The host at PlumpJack poured me a Cabernbet and said, "This is best served with white fish and Jack Johnson" who happened to be crooning "you better hope you're not alone" at that very instant. During our taste of their Merlot, he quipped that it was oaky, had some vanilla in it, and was really good alongside Dave Matthews. Right, right and right. PlumpJack was cool, restarted Daddy's motor, and fell on the Oakville cross road. We made our way over to 29 to hit the Oakville market with the notion of finding a hidden place to picnic on our last day in Napa. Candie and Liz ran the crowded aisles scooping up mustard, bread, cheeses and wine for the eventual feast. Outside the market, the traffic on 29 was getting heavy and ominous, and as we headed to the van, Courtney mentioned a sign that the store owner posted warning of a young Blackbird nest being guarded by the proud father of the babies. "He will attack your hair" the sign cautioned, so naturally, I coaxed Candie into seeing if this was true. This picture proves that Napa grocery store owners know what the hell they are talking about. Don't worry, she survived.

Our final winery was the most memorable by far. We departed from 29, and into an area I'm not sure we were even supposed to go. There were no other cars, a curvaceous and dangerous road up and into the mountainside. Our van strained at the pitch, and I wondered if we were nuts to drive that far out of the way for a winery we hadn't been told to see except by one person. We found the Robert Keenan vineyard at the dead end of a one lane road. The air was calm and the A-frame house that stored the wine was muted by two foot concrete walls, offering a 15 degree temp change when we stepped inside. We were met by a diminutive woman too hoarse to give us a more than a wave inside where she asked the same question as everyone else..."Do you have an appointment?" We didn't and she could have said sorry, goodbye. She was going to close in an hour (3:00) but graciously poured us a six flight wine tasting for free and cleaned up to leave as we sipped. We asked her if we could stay behind after she closed up and have our picnic and she told us to keep our wine glasses and simply leave them by the side door whenever we finished.

Folks, this was once in a lifetime. We sat in the dying california sun and ate and drank like retirees. We laughed, took pictures, and were finally coaxed by Daddy to give ourselves a hiking tour of the vineyard. This place is set on the mountainside, and the terrain is ridiculously steep and lush. I won't ever forget those two hours on the hills of the Robert Keenan Winery. Please go there and buy his wine.

The next twelve hours were spent in winding down mode, though we ended the night hot with Beer can Chicken and another late run. Zero traffic driving back to San Jose Sunday morning and back to reality.

I may never see Napa again, but I want to. But like your first kiss, you never really get that moment back. It would never be quite the same, so maybe I'll simply cross it off my list and find the next place to culture me up. Cheers to five great travel mates, to the hills of the Napa Valley, to the locals who loved us for a weekend and their dogs, and Happy Anniversary, Kari. You get to pick our 20th adventure in 4 years...