Monterey Peninsula, Napa Valley
Thursday Nov. 10, 2005
Thursday will most likely be remembered as the highlight of our trip.
After breakfast we walked into the village of Napa to look around. There
is a downtown center and the streets have a lot of B&B Inns and Victorian style
homes. After the walk we drove up Rt 19 to the Franciscan Estate where
Sues friend Denise W. had set up a tasting and lunch. Franciscan is owned
by Constellation and their focus is on fine wines. We were met by
Cassandra. She showed around the winery and their wine library and then
spent a hour or so showing us their various wine offerings and educating us
about the various types of wind and wine/food pairings. Following the
tasting we had lunch in their wine center with Chet H and Nancy F.
Franciscan has their own chef and the lunch was "out of this world" We
started with a sampling of white wines and a mushroom salad, this was followed
by a sampling of red wines and grilled duck breast that was served over a bed of
greens. For dessert it was back to white wines and a berry tart. It
really was an exquisite experience! For they afternoon, they had set us up
with a tour and tasting at the Robert Mondavi winery which is just south of the
Franciscan Estate. There, Mike M showed us around through the vineyard,
production and aging areas, and conducted a tasting for us. Mike has been
at Robert Mondavi for 27 years. Denise had set us up as part of a "trade
tour" and there were two other couples, both on their honeymoons. One of
the guys was a sommelier at a restaurant that was part of the Vail resort.
He asked the best questions. It was starting to get dark when we finished
the tasting so we started shopping for a place for dinner (assuming that we'd be
hungry again that night). We looked at Mustards, several places while
walking around Yountville and then the village of Napa. We went back out
around 8 and looked at a French restaurant La Toque in Rutherford. It
looked great but it was a 7 course kind of place and we weren't up for that.
We wound up at the Rutherford Grill which is located next to BV in Rutherford.
Sue had a fish sandwich and I had marinated mushrooms and grilled tri-tip.