wine: Freemark Abbey

I stopped drinking wine when I started the IVF drugs. Oddly enough, I was totally ok with that. I know. shocking. 

Anywho, we have frozen our embryos, so we've got a bit of time while I'm not on anything that we can open a bottle of wine, watch the Bachelor and enjoy. Man oh man this crop of girls is a trip.  Don't tell me what's going on, we're a week behind...

Anyway, we figured if there's only going to be one bottle of wine opened between the meds, it better be a good one.  Scratch that. A wow-wee I love what Napa produces type of wine.  There are a lot of options when this is what you are looking for in a bottle of wine, but hello. We're doing IVF, it's not cheap and we've yet to find that tree that produces dollar bills. (still searching).

We stumbled upon Freemark Abbey a few years ago when Mike did a project about them for his MBA program.  We drive past their winery all the time when we are in Napa, and all we've done is jump out of the car and take a picture of Mike in front of their sign. Seriously, next time we need to actually do a wine tasting. So many choices, not enough time.  

But until we actually grace them with our presence. We did the next best thing by going to the grocery store and buying this bottle.  I imagine it was around the $30-35 range, but I'm not sure. Mike was in charge of picking out the wines that night.  Anyway, you'd think that since I'm so diligent with the blogging again (yes, by diligent, I mean 2 consecutive entries in one week. baby steps people.) I would have written notes about the bottle.  Well I didn't. But I can tell you examples of what we probably said when we tasted it.

MMMMmmm

Delightful

splendid 

Now, they know how to make a bottle of wine. 

While you may not think that list tells you enough about the actual taste of the wine, I'll go into a bit more detail:

pairs well with: The Bachelor

color: Cabernet-colored

taste: mmmm, good.  

Pretty much that can be translated into a great bottle of wine with plum, dark cherry, chocolate, peppery, oak, cedar, figs, dried herbs and great full body from start to finish.  I lied, I didn't gather that from my description. I googled Freemark Abbey 2011 Cab and the fine folks and Freemark Abbey gave me those suggestions.  And sure enough, I remember every single note. 

 Oh yes, and they also told me I was wrong on the price -- it's $44 per bottle. 

wine: 2007 Conn Creek

So, did you think that forgot how to open a bottle of wine? Nope, we didn't. We just haven't gone out on a limb and purchased a new bottle of wine in the past year (buying 2 cases of St Francis really puts a kink in your wine blogging.) 

This wine costs $35. Not one we will buy again. It's much too vanilla-y for our taste. Put it in perspective, Rombauer Cab is the bomb diggity and that can run about the same price (Mike says it's probably $10 more, but I beg to differ, I swear the last time we bought a Rombauer Cab it was under $40, but maybe it just played with my head at $39.99 (tricky like that).

Anywho, I digress. This wine is not a winner. No oakiness, no spice, no earthy qualities. Upon first taste, I got a headache. Awesome. 

wine time!

Blurry picture = on our way out the door and bringing this bottle with us to a friend's house and I realized we hadn't given it its own photo shoot yet (mistake #1)

I haven't blogged about wine in such a long time that I figured it's time to get the pictures off the camera and talk about them.  You know what happens when you leave pictures on your camera and you don't take notes on the wine?  You forget the specifics (mistake#2). DOH! Well, shoot, taking wine notes was supposed to be my 2012 resolution.

So here's the low down on this bottle of wine:  Castello only sells wine at its winery or through its website.  You can't buy this bottle anymore. We liked it.  We are sad we didn't buy more of the 07 Castello Cab.  Lesson learned - next time we are at Castello di Amorosa, we'll have 2 of everything, and we'll take tasting notes immediately!

Let me break this down to you in math terms:

   blurry picture

+ no wine notes

= good wine, fun times, no mistakes

The good news is that we've found that you really can't go wrong with any Castello bottle, which - if you are following my math - clears away all your previous mistakes.  Yippee!

wine: st. supery cab 2006

St. Supery is one of those wineries that we have always wanted to go to while in Napa and have never been.  Mike has had a few of their bottles of wine while entertaining his clients and so he was super excited that it was part of the 5 cent sale.  Upon first pour, the smell was delightful, and the taste was rich with espresso and cherry flavors.  Our only complaint was that the taste fell off so quickly.  Some people like that, especially when having a glass of wine with a meal.  We, on the other hand, like to have our wine kick us in the face, apparently. 

Stars: 2.79

Smell: great!

Color: strawberry jam

Taste: mellow, doesn't match the great smell

tricks of the trade

It's no secret that we like to go wine tasting. A lot.  I mean, c'mon, we live near one of the most remarkable wine regions in the world, wouldn't it be a shame if we didn't go?

We go wine tasting for you, people, so that this blog has content. 

We are givers.

And since it's the season of giving, I thought I'd share with you what we bring with us each time we go wine tasting.   Thank you, you kind readers that like to hear me babble. I appreciate it.

Now, let me tell you a story. Once, we were at Kenwood (Sonoma County) tasting their delicious wines and there was a girl in the tasting room that wasn't looking too hot. Her boyfriend, husband, poor soul...whomever he was, was basically carrying her over his shoulder, she had had a bit too much to drink. (Side note: This was our first winery of the day, hardly 11am.) Shortly after we finished up our tasting, we headed to the car to grab a few snacks, and to our left was this girl, and her poor soul of a caretaker, leaning over a rock ledge.  Then, as if the fire hose turned on, vomit started violently coming out of her. Purple vomit. Let this be a lesson to you, purple vomit is never pretty, even if you are just an innocent bystander. 

To avoid vomit like the marionettes from Team America, we bring snacks.  Here's our list of things that come with us every time we go wine tasting:

1. Barkley : no, we don't eat her, she's just so fun, we can't leave her behind...you don't need to have her on your list, but she's on ours and I wanted to be truthful with our list...therefore, I'm sharing. Many wineries are dog friendly, more than you would expect. 

2. Water : I mean a lot of it.  Like toss a case of water bottles in your trunk, I typically am not a proponent of plastic water bottles, but this is my one exception. 

3. Snacks : party mix, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, apples and granola bars are our go-to snacks

4. Pack a picnic : Most wineries will not allow you to picnic on their grounds, however there are some that will either allow you to picnic if you buy a bottle of wine (Rutherford Hill Winery) or others that have a deli where you can buy your sustenance and picnic on their grounds (V. Sattui and Beringer).   I am sure there are more, but those are the few that we've actually eaten at. 

The good news about packing a picnic is that you don't waste time sitting at a restaurant. We are serious about our time management in wine country.  Most wineries are only open from 10 - 4pm or so, which means it's important to maximize your time.  In the course of a day trip to Napa, we typically don't taste at all the wineries we go to (but when we do a tasting, we typically share one so that we don't become like the purple vomit girl), but we like to check out as many as possible, just to see the grounds, take a few pictures... you know, for the blog.

winery: Chimney Rock

Each time we drive to Napa, we like to stop at a new winery.  When we have people visiting, we always have to stop by our mainstays (Castello di Amorosa, Beringer, Silver Oak), however it's nice to try something new.  And there are so many new wineries to try that no matter how long we live in Northern California, I think there will always be an opportunity to try a new place.

During this trip to Napa, we decided to make a stop at Chimney Rock. Mike and I enjoyed a jeroboam of Chimney Rock Cab while in Las Vegas this past February.  We loved it, so we thought it was about time we checked out their winery.  [Full disclosure: Mike and I, and 24 of his clients enjoyed the jeroboam - Mike and I like wine, however we can't finish that much wine.  A jeroboam, or double magnum (but I like to say jeroboam, it just rolls off your tongue) is 4 regular bottles of wine all put into one mega large super cool looking large bottle of wine.]

Chimney Rock is part of the Terlato family of wineries which didn't mean much to me but a few stops later on in our day, we went to the top of Rutherford Hill at the Rutherford Hill winery and voila, they are also part of the Terlato family (I read it on their sign), so it's quite a good group.  The wines that we tried were fantastic (the Cab is quite good), the winery is dog friendly and the people - both the guests and the employees were very nice and the employees very knowledgeable.  Which makes for a great experience trying some wine and will bring us back again and again.

I'm not sure who lives in this house, but whenever they are tired of this view, if they could just bequeath it to us.  We'd be honored to wake up and make coffee overlooking this view.  Wouldn't you?

great news!

[castello di amorosa]

[beringer]

While doing some research on Napa Valley wineries with cave tours, I stumbled upon a blog called The Wine Lounge.  Clearly, I knew it was right up my alley, so I decided to check it out - and now you should too! You see, they have a contest to win some wine just by submitting a photo (or two...I like to over share). So I submitted a two pictures, because you know me, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to win a few free bottles of wine.  And guess what?  They've published a few of my favorite pictures over on their blog. Isn't that nice of them?!?!

Now, I haven't won any wine yet, but seeing my pictures on somebody's blog (that's not mine) just makes me feel like I should go reward myself with a glass of wine....it's too early. I'll wait. But you shouldn't (not the drinking wine part, well you do that too if you want, but what you should really do now is go check out my pictures!) 

What are you waiting for? Go. Go. Go.

Just click the link below:
The Wine Lounge

wine: decoy

Who doesn't want to drink the wine for the well informed?  We picked this wine up at the grocery store because it is part of the Duckhorn family of wines - you may remember our most favorite winery experience that included cheese at Paraduxx (see our experience at Paraduxx here)  - also part of the Duckhorn family of wines.  We were very impressed with the wines of Paraduxx, so we figured Decoy would be just as tasty.  Boy, were we right. 

[3.82 stars]

This wine was really good.  It had that "just from the winery" type taste...and I think the only way to explain that feeling is to come visit us and we'll take you to Napa.  But if that isn't in the stars, then the next best way to understand that "just from the winery" wine taste - I think it's having the oak-i-ness smell and taste that transforms you from your living room couch to the winery where the barrels are located just several feet away.  If you haven't already guessed, I really really like going to wineries, so when a wine can beam me up to Napa, I'm sold.  I must apologize that I don't know the price of this one, but I do know that we picked this one up when Mike was grocery shopping with me, so that typically means our price per bottle goes up ever so slightly...and we get Toaster Strudels. 

 Neither one of them I'll complain about. 

unicorns, not included

To me, every castle needs a unicorn.  This one however does not. This castle has chickens, sheep and wine.  OK, maybe I have just reformed my idea of what needs to be included in a castle.  I think the latter ingredients are much better.

Castello di Amorosa is located in Calistoga on St. Helena highway. It is a huge castle with sweeping views of Napa Valley.  Castello is owned by Mr. Sattui.  Which if you drove the entire St. Helena highway from the south to the north to the castle, you would have passed V. Sattui, another delightful and energetic winery. But that winery is for another day. We're talking castles today.

The Italian influence on the Californian grown grapes makes a very interesting and delicious blend for the wines. Send all of these bottles to my cellar, please!

Shoot... I don't have a cellar and our bottle wine frig is maxed out at the moment.

We've never had a complaint about any of the people that we've had that have been pouring the wines for us.  They are all so friendly and knowledgeable and they pose the wines for perfect photos.

Gifts galore surround the tasting room.  It's a very interesting medley of things found while you are wine tasting.  You may also befriend a dog, and if we were present, you could befriend our dog as this winery is dog friendly and Bark Bark LOVES it! She will lick the cobblestone floor 'til the cows come home.  This winery also has a wine dog named Lupo.  Lupo is a German Shepherd and his name is Italian for wolf. So clever.  Sadly, we've never met Lupo on any of our visits yet.  It might just become my mission however as Barkley has a fondness towards the Shepherd.  You see, I learned this from their website, which you should check out too.  It's full of lots of fun facts and BEAUTIFUL pictures.  I also learned about their sustainable farming techniques.  Barkley may have a fondness towards big dogs; my fondness goes straight to the sustainable agriculture techniques.  God bless a good natural predator or cover crops. 

 Even creepy legless monks can be yours. Just kidding, you don't want the monk... check out that crown!

Fancy wine stoppers.  It's hard to pass up a good wine stopper.

For more information, check out their website here.

Peju

We went to Peju mainly because they were still open and we thought we'd try it on the way out of town. Let that be a lesson - don't simply try a winery based on their hours of operation.  We had a pretty horrible experience.  It wasn't like a normal winery where you find a spot at a bar and start your tasting. No, no, no.  After telling the girl when we arrived how many people we in our party, we were told to shop and would be ushered upstairs when they were ready for us.  A few minutes passed and we were brought upstairs to a man that had clearly memorized a wine script and there was no straying from that. (awkward jokes were included in said script).  And to make matters worse, when ushered upstairs, we had to endure our tasting with two drunk girls that could not have been more annoying.  But enough on that.  On the bright side, they did have a pretty good selection of wine related goods for sale (see soap below), and the second floor tasting room offered a lovely view of the vines and a really really big barrel.

.

Dear Napa Soap Company: You have the best soap names.  I want to work for you. 

This picture is taken from the second floor tasting room - hence the really really big barrel. 

Paraduxx

[hey look, it's a pair of ducks...or a paraduxx.]

[no wait, this is Paraduxx]

The wine guy at Andretti recommended that we go to Paraduxx. I'd like to go back and give that guy at Andretti a high five.  I must admit that it might not have been on our short list of places to go, however it will be now.  Paraduxx does a wine and cheese pairing no matter which type of tasting that you do. 

Who doesn't love that? 

This winery gives you directions on how to do your wine tasting.  Wines number 1,2,3 (going from left to right) are all the same wine just different years.  2005 was a bountiful year full of rain, so you can really taste the fruitiness.  2006 and 2007 weren't so bountiful, but they were good - the 2007 especially. Pardon me but I have no idea what wine number 4 was anymore.  It was good, but it wasn't part of the tasting instructions, so I can't remember what it was. I pay attention to directions. 

Step 1: Try all 4 wines without eating any cheese.

Step 2: Try the wines and eat the cheese.

Step 3: Try wine numero tres with the orange cheese.

Step 3a: Slightly chew the orange cheese.

Step 3b: Take a sip of the 07 wine with the cheese slightly chewed and then swallow both.

Step 4: Don't choke.

The difference in the 07 wine with and without the cheese is astounding.  Seriously. I have no idea what this cheese was, but it was magic.

This winery really was a fun place.  The patio outside had enough room for the entire town to chill out on a comfy outdoor couch (well not the same couch, but rather multiple couches).  I loved it, although it was quite chilly outside so we went spent our time tasting inside. 

the end.

wine: Stag's Leap Fay

You know what's really great about a great bottle of wine?  It tastes so very good. You know what the bad part about a really great bottle of wine is?  It makes your $5 bottle of wine taste like grape juice.

Oh well, a great bottle of wine is totally worth it.  This one is no exception.  We got this bottle when we were at the winery (which you may remember since I just told you about it.) We came home from a day in Napa with a few really good bottles of wine. 

Really good bottles.

The Stag's Leap FAY is one of our favorite wines ever. I think it might be Mike's #1 wine.  Which is saying something because he's got good taste. (He married me for goodness sakes! HA!) No seriously, the top of his list is typically Silver Oak and Joseph Phelps.  Sorry to tell you Mr. Phelps but you will not be receiving the top honors this season.  I'm also sorry to inform you however that I can't for the life of me think about any descriptive words that explain the FAY, other than:

YUM.

Silverado winery

Do you remember when I told you that the Stag's Leap guy told us that some wineries are great for their estate and some wineries are great for their wines?  Well, Silverado would be one of those wineries that is great for the scenery.  Honestly, it's views like this that make me believe God really likes wine.

Good wine that is, you know wine that's better than that church wine stuff. 

And just because I know you were wondering, is Silverado dog friendly? It is if you quietly bring your dog to the patio, but if you let your dog bark on your way out...

stag's leap

You know what the BEST thing is about living in Northern California?  It's going to Napa or Sonoma for the day.  And you know what the BEST thing about this October was? We were in Napa or Sonoma 3 out of 4 weekends. Life is good.  We love it there.  And now you know why you are going to like me in November?  Because I'm going to actually blog about all those weekends in October at the wineries.  Yahoo for wine!

Welcome to Stag's Leap.  We love their wine but because there are 80 bgillion (or so it seems) wineries in Northern California, we had never been to their winery.  Well things have changed, my friend.  Boy did we enjoy this place.  We were told by the guy doing our wine tasting that there are some wineries where you go for the wine and there are some wineries that you go for the estate.  Stag's Leap is definitely a place to go for some really great wine, but that's not to say that the estate was shabby by any means. It was simple and a homey - so very comfortable.  The employees were all super nice, chatty and willing to pour a few extra tastes of our favorite wines.  We never felt rushed and absolutely loved the wine tasting, the people and the company we kept ~ thanks Andrea & Ryan!

 .

 Wouldn't it be great to have this in your cellar of your home? Yes, I said cellar.  Some day, my friends, some day. 

Stag's Leap is known for its Cabernets.  We did the tasting that involved 3 of their finest cabs.  We really enjoyed the FAY and the Cask 23.  While the SLV was also extremely good, it was a bit dryer than the other two and when trying all three at one sitting, you can be picky about your wines.

Notice the multiple signs on this stairway...they really are serious that you really shouldn't go up there.  Which makes me say to myself, "what do they keep up there?" So let's do some guessing:

1. squirrels riding unicycles

2. a pool full of wine

3. floaties and snorkel equipment for playing in that said pool o' wine.

Just kidding, I don't know what is up there...and squirrels can't ride unicycles.

Andretti Winery

The Andretti Winery is a sweet little winery located off of Silverado trail in Napa County owned by none other than Mario.  No, not like Mario and Luigi, but THE Mario Andretti (hence the name: Andretti). We've been to Andretti one other time with my parents and both times we have had a great experience.  We got here pretty early since Andretti was our first stop so there was only one other couple at the winery, which was fun because we didn't feel rushed in any way.  The guy doing our tasting gave us a lot of good recommendations of other wineries to try as well as some seafood places to try in the city (which has nothing to do with a day in wine country, but was great, because we LOVE seafood).  Really he could have been the Northern California chamber of commerce poster child with all the great stuff that he told us to do the rest of the day and beyond!

(Word to the wise: There are a lot of wineries that dogs are welcome in Napa, this however is not one of those wineries.)

Our favorite wine we tried was the Zin Primitivo which was 50% Zinfandel and 50% Primitivo (or I guess you could just read the label to figure that one out.)  This was a really easy drinking wine.  It would be a perfect summer day red wine.  Typically on a summer day, we'll gravitate towards a bottle of the Kenwood Jack London Zinfandel, so it's nice to have another choice in the holster...i.e. wine frig) And apparently I'm slow on the uptake because I just noticed that on the label there's a checkered flag.  Sweet.

Our wine guy also told us some great tidbits about the wines - did you know that Mario was born in Montona, Italy?  Hence, the Montona Merlot.  This one was good too. I think I have quite the bias towards Merlots, but they seem to always surprise me.

(I blame the movie Sideways.)

wine: Three's no crowd

[4 stars]

While back in Minnesota in August, we enjoyed a lot of Menage a Trois red wine.  My parents turned us on to this wine and we all enjoyed it immensely.  So much so, that at $9 per bottle, it will be a regular in our wine repertoire.

There's a pattern, people. Do you remember when I told you about the Cinq Cepages wine from Chateau St. Jean that has 5 varieties to give you a party in your mouth from the first time it hits your tongue to after you have swallowed? 

Well, as you can see:
a) I can't help but spill a little wine down the side of the bottle when I pour a glass.
b) It's a blend, baby! Yippee for the 3 varieties!

Also, the jokes are endless with this wine.  My favorite was when I was telling my sister that we've driven past this winery many times while in Napa and that Mike and I will have to check this winery out soon.  Her response was, "Bring a friend." 

Get it?

silver oak

If you were to ask Mike or I for a good Cabernet recommendation, we would tell you to get Silver Oak...ok, first we would tell you to get Joseph Phelps, but after that would be Silver Oak. Particularly the 2006 Silver Oak...or was that the 2007?  Hmm, I can't remember. One of those years was a particularly good year for the Silver Oak cabs. (I'd say it's the 2007, but that's only because that's the year that we got married. 2007 was a really good year.)  Sorry I can't be of more help on that one...although I'm sure the price tag will tell you the good year - you know, use your deductive reasoning, people.

We stopped by the Silver Oak vineyard in Sonoma County last year and absolutely loved it.  We made friends with the other people in the tasting room (everyone had a Minnesota connection, and you KNOW how much we love that!), we got a free tasting because we used a particular credit card and we had a wonderful wine guy that offered us so many tidbits about the wine. 

We like tidbits.

Now, fast forward to my birthday this year, we wanted to try out some wineries that are off the beaten path. Silver Oak in Napa is hardly off the beaten path, it's just on a cross street that intersects the main roads (Hwy 29 and Silverado trail run parallel down the valley.)   

The grounds at the Napa location are absolutely beautiful.  The view is something that I could stare at forever. Give me a glass of Cab and a chair in the sun and I'm a happy camper.  The Sonoma location is very nice, however, not the grandiose view that the Napa location has. 

So, Napa wins the scenic contest, however after that, Sonoma wins all other battles.  The people at the Napa location had no interest in tidbits.

Again, we like those tidbits....I'm sure this Napa wine guy didn't know that I have a very famous blog.

(ok, not very famous.)

(OK, not famous at all - Hi mom!)

But still, it doesn't mean that you, Mr. Silver Oak Napa wine guy, don't have to offer information about the wine, the valley that the grapes were harvested in.  Because you know what? We blog (ok I do, Mike blogs in spirit), we studied soil science (ok, not Mike, but I did) and we like to learn about the wine we drink.  It's what the wine country experience is all about. 

Pardon my soap box interlude, but I really like Silver Oak wine and this Napa experience struck a nerve.

Clearly.

On another note, Barkley really did enjoy the winery.

(just look at her smile!)