Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Stop numero uno: Hess Collection

[Hess courtyard - what you don't see here is to the left of this runs a long, narrow pond full of gold fish and other man eating fish]
[these flowers were really enjoying the 98 degree heat]
[Monks live here. They really know where to lay their heads. This is right next to Hess.]


[this one is called "ivy on building"]



Two Sunday mornings ago, we got up, ate our raisin bran in bulk (again with the Costco - we eat a lot of cereal)...anyways, Mike had the wonderful idea to go check out Napa. I had no idea that it was only 45 minutes away from us, what a pleasant surprise! It was 98 degrees and no breeze. (Athis is probably going to be an ongoing post this week because I'm getting a wee bit tired and don't think I can provide adequate justice to each vineyard if I write about them all tonight...but that just keeps you coming back for more this week so it's all good.)

[hess collection] = 5 stars
We went here for the sole purpose to take a picture of the Hess name but as it turns out the Hess Collection was positively wonderful, not nearly as wondeful as the other Hess family collection we have back home (we miss you!) but this was a real treat.

The grounds were absolutely beautiful, and the people working there were quite possibly the nicest we met all day. (Apparently 28-year-olds in Napa aren't the highly sought after crowd to be nice to - as we found out, but Hess wasn't that way.)

It was on a very windy road with signs that said, "Caution, ICE" which I thought was really ironic being that it was 98 degrees. Hess had a very modern art gallery. The wines we tried were basically all cabernets, the BEST BEST BEST one we tried was their 2001 Cab. What a dream in a glass. Like I said, the Hess people were so nice that they understood that we enjoyed wine and learning about it so the 4 tastes that we paid for ($10 buys you 4 different wines) we ended up getting to try 6 or 7. 2001 was our favorite. They actually had a really great white wine too, however I can't find my notes that I took while we were there right now so that'll be another day.

I would highly suggest anyone to visit the Hess Collection. It was such a wonderful mix of art, wine, peaceful scenery. California wine country is just one of those places that every sight you see is unbelievably beautiful. And they appreciate people like me....yes that's right people that went to school to study dirt...they are in high demand (ok not sure about high demand but at least they know about Soil Science in these parts! Yahoo!) to make the grapes grow right. I knew I felt like I belong!

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