Quick Wine Pickup Trip

We belong to two wine clubs in Napa so we have an excuse to go every 3-4 months! Good thinking eh? hahaha!! But, seriously, it is kind of like living in Merced with Yosemite in your backyard and you never get a chance to go!! We are only an hour from Napa - the GREATEST spot in the WORLD for wine and we feel we need to 'take advantage' of our proximity.

We grabbed our other two AMIGOS (David and Vasi) and made the drive. Our good friend and wine specialist, Gary, was also heading over to take a group of his friends on a tour of the wine country. Their first stop was at Biale, where we needed to pick up our wine! Perfect timing! You've gotta know Gary to understand his 'tours'.....he is extremely passionate about wine and excited to get others appreciating the science/art of it too. He has lots of connections so we joined them to receive a personal tour of the CRUSH going on at Biale. Yes, the air was FULL of wine, the vineyards had lots of fall color and we had a great time experiencing it all.

Dick (and a little bit of Gary) tasting the Zinfindel grapes,

fresh off the vine. YUMMY! We wanted some for our yogurt!

Dick is very serious when it comes to tasting grapes! haha!! ;-)

Kevin, the man in the hat in the back of the photo flies in from Wales each harvest to assist. He is an instructor in wine science and LOVES to teach! We were able to taste the juice from the grapes at different levels of the process. This was also very good, natural juices!
I always walk away with a deeper appreciation for the bottle of wine we just open and pour. So much love, dedication, science, art are really what is being poured in each glass we drink.
Tasting the barrel of their famous Black Chicken. It was being emptied from the oak barrels on this particular day and placed into the big steel containers for the last months before it will be bottled and sold.

We had lunch at our favorite spot for lunch -Gott's Roadside, formerly known as Taylor's Refresher. We picked up one more shipment of wine at Provenance then checked into our hotel to take a nap!

Vasi and David

Me and Dickie

We tried HotWire for the first time on a hotel room and were very satisfied with the results! We ended up getting the Best Western Premier Ivy Hotel Napa, in a great location, right off Hwy 29! It was very comfortable, had a FREE tasty breakfast, very modern, updated rooms and VERY affordable!! We could have easily just driven back home in time for dinner..... but why? :-0

Part of the room.

We had a few hours of, much needed, down time then went out for dinner to a new spot - Oenotri - located in downtown Napa, where we do not usually frequent. The downtown area was ADORABLE and very very nice!! We enjoyed the dinner - Italian, very cozy and relaxed. The wine list was grossly overpriced and the $30 section were either Italian or French - an unknown market to us - so we brought in a bottle from the trunk of our car - which I would suggest doing - $15 corkage. We had the most fun at our table! The restaurant was decorated with many different types of squash and gords for the Fall atmosphere and we found a lot of humor in them!

A 'Swan squash' - with a straight neck! Makes you laugh?

After dinner we enjoyed some window shopping and ended up at the Avia Hotel, across the street from Oenotri. At the bar they were offering a Spiced Apple Sparkling Wine. HUH? Well, they use a very rich, natural apple juice, cinnamon stick and pour the Chandon Sparkling wine over it in a Martini glass. YUM!! It was so delicious and hit the spot on this crisp October evening. Yes, I'll be making these!!

We departed around 10 a.m. to head back home since Taylor gets out of school early on Wednesdays. As we were driving home, Dick said, "Back to reality". My answer was, "thankfully..... 'reality' ain't that bad!!" So true!! Thank you God!!

I picked Gabby up in Daly City - Vasi's son Brad was 'babysitting'. It has been absolutely beautiful in SF these past days so we had to stop and put our toes in the water. Gabby is not a big fan of water but LOVED running on the beach. Yes, we all must STOP and 'smell the roses' in life!

It's a big big world out there!