lgsjr – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Plaza Mayor

Among the things that any first-time to Madrid must do is to visit the Plaza Mayor. That’s sort of like saying that first-time visitors to New York City must see Times Square. There’s no way any visitor would miss it. It is the principal meeting place in Spain’s capital city and it has had an interesting history.

The Plaza Mayor in Madrid, at night.

There has been a marketplace in that spot since the 15^th century. It wasn’t always called the Plaza Mayor (Major Square in English). The name has changed in the winds of Spanish politics; for instance it was called Plaza de la Constitución off and on depending on the strength of the monarchy. It has stayed as the Plaza Mayor only since the end of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, but it seems the name will stick.

Today it is a grand square completely surrounded by four-story buildings. Mostly they are occupied as private residences, except for the plaza-level, which is almost completely commercial. The plaza is a magnet for tourists and so it is filled with people every day, all year long. Where there are tourists, there are sure to be vendors spreading a blanket and selling handbags, tchotchkes and Real Madrid tee shirts. There are also acrobats and street musicians, about the same as may be found in almost every popular tourist destination, worldwide.

That said, the Plaza Mayor is a marvel of architectural harmony, designed as we know it today by Juan Villanueva, who also was the architect of the Parado museum and other grand buildings in Madrid. In the middle of it all is a statue of the Spanish king Philip III on horseback. It is quite a pleasure to sit under one of the restaurant umbrellas surrounding the plaza, sipping a glass of wine and munching on tapas. Just taking in the hubbub is a part of the Madrid experience.

It is also worth exploring the shops that surround the Plaza Mayor. There is an arched portico around the square and the shops are easy to access, even if the day is hot or rainy. Many of them are full of tacky souvenirs, but there are some interesting ones, such as the hatmaker and vendor of Spanish almonds.

The Mercado San Miguel. Photo courtesy of Tourism Madrid.

Just outside the northwest corner of the Plaza Mayor is the Mercado San Miguel. It should be experienced on an empty stomach. It was an actual food market for nearly a century, until the growth of supermarkets rendered it obsolete. In 2009 it was re-opened as a mammoth gourmet tapas food hall. The game plan for a visit there is to walk around and locate the food to buy. This is difficult because everything looks (and is) delicious. One person hunts down some empty stools at the long tables that are located throughout the hall. Another person finds the bar and purchases glasses of wine. Then they take turns buying portions to share from the various kiosks. When sated – this can take hours – they repair to the bar and finish off the meal with their grand selection of sherries.

Freixenet, Today

This article is meant to be the companion piece to “Freixenet, Back When”, published in the Experiences section of Power Tasting’s April 2025 edition. As published, we had consistently misspelled the name of the winery, which we have since corrected. And while we’re at it, the name of the winery is pronounced FRESH-eh-net. We apologize to our readers and to the people at Freixenet.

There are often wine tasting destinations near big cities. Napa Valley is an hour or so from San Francisco. It’s a few hours’ drive from New York City to Long Island’s North Fork. Wine is being made inside Vienna’s city limits and nearby as well. And just outside Barcelona, there’s Penedes, where Cava is made. An easy train ride from Barcelona to the village of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia brings you directly to Freixenet.

The Freixenet winery.

In case you weren’t aware, Cava is Spain’s sparkling wine. At Freixenet, it is made the same way as French Champagne, except that the primary grapes are Macabeo, Paralleda and Xarelo (or Xarel·lo, as the Catalans spell it). Their wines range from the well-known Carta Nevada and Cordon Negro to some interesting wines at the other end of their spectrum, such as Gran Reserva Brut Nature (with no dosage) and an Extra Brut. They also have a rosé sparkler that is made of the Trepat grape. Finally, there is a dessert sparkling one made from Malvasia grapes.

Reproduction of a Freixenet advertising poster of another era.

All these are the wines served on their wine and cheese tour, which we recommend. If you do take the train there, you will find the winery right at the station. Externally, it looks very much like a Spanish hacienda, which we guess isn’t unintentional. The area in front of the winery has some ancient presses and a golden 1950 Chrysler. Once inside, the reception area is sleek and modern, decorated with art that recalls Freixenet’s history. There’s also the Freixenetmobile, in the form of a bottle of Cordon Negro.

The Freixenetmobile.

The tour begins with a film about Freixenet’s history and current presence in the world. Not only are they the best selling Cava, the company sells more sparkling wine than any other producer globally. They have a long history, having been founded in 1914. They survived the Spanish Civil War that took the lives of the founder and his son. His widow kept Freixenet going through the Franco years. In 2018, they were bought out by the German Sekt maker, Henkell, so now they are not just Spanish but international

If you’ve seen how Champagne or California sparkling wine is made, there’s not much new on the tour of Freixenet. One fun extra is an array of antique bottling equipment. The high spot, naturally, is the tasting. There, Freixenet flexes its muscles a bit and shows of what Cava is capable of. As always, Power Tasting doesn’t review wine, but we can say that we did enjoy what we were served and were quite delightedly surprised by Freixenet’s range.

Sadly, their better Cavas aren’t available in the United States and only sparingly so in Canada. So there’s nothing else to do than travel to Spain and take the Freixenet tour.

All Those Grapes

As detailed in another article in this edition, Spanish winemakers use a lot of grapes that are unfamiliar to most North American wine lovers. Perhaps most people don’t care but the readers of Power Tasting are a demanding bunch. They don’t just want to enjoy what they’re sipping but also know about it. In California, wherever they go, they know they’ll find Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel in the reds, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc in the whites.

Tasting wine at tapas bars in Barcelona.

Not so in Spain. A lot of it is geographical. In the north, there will be Tempranillo; in the southwest, near Jerez, there will be Palomino and Pedro Ximénez in the sherry. Macabeo in Pinedes, Mencia in the Priorat and in Galicia Albariño grapes go into the wine of the same name. It would take a lot of travel to experience them all at the vineyards.

That’s where wine bars come in. The fact that the bars also double as taparias doesn’t hurt. Here are a few tips for diving into the various grapes that are used in Spanish winemaking.

One option is pot luck. There’s nothing stopping you from sitting down with a tapa and asking for a glass of tinto or a blanco. Then ask the server what wine was served. Crude but effective, if you go to enough tapas bars you’re likely to get a selection. But it will also likely be a selection of mediocre wines.

Skip the sangria. A pitcher of fruit juice, red wine and fruit is (may be?) fine for a picnic. If you’re interested in learning about Spanish wines, you won’t learn anything with sangria.

A better plan is to go to the slightly better tapas bars (for the most part, you can tell the better ones just by looking at them) and order wine by region. Even better, order several glasses from different regions and compare them. In that manner we found that we prefer wines from the Ribero del Duero to those from Rioja. Maybe that’s because Riberos are often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Riojas with Spanish grapes. In the whites, we found we prefer Albariños to the Macabeos of Rioja.

Rely on sommeliers. While this is good advice anywhere, having someone guide you through the mysteries of a Spanish wine list is very helpful. A better restaurant will offer wines from smaller producers of higher quality that are probably unknown to foreign visitors. Always with consideration for the food order, you can ask a sommelier or a server to suggest a wine specifically from regions other than the best known ones and from less well known grapes as well. That’s how, in the past, we discovered Priorat wines and Verdejo from Castille.

Try as many as you can, then decide. It is easy to fall back on Tempranillo as a favorite because these are the most widely available wines back home. But if you’re in Spain, experiment. You may never get to taste wines from some grapes again. And if you find one you do like, you can search for it in wine stores around where you live. You may get lucky.

Discovering Spanish Wines

Our earliest wine drinking experiences were with (inexpensive) French wines. We don’t remember for sure whether our parents knew about these first sips. By the time we got to California wines, they were in big jugs, mostly opened at parties. We have moved up a bit from those days, but still our table usually features wines from France, Italy and the United States.

Photo courtesy of 8Wines.

We came to Spanish wines much later in life. In one way, that was too bad, since we missed out on some fine drinking. On the other hand, we were able to appreciate quality when we tasted it. Even so, most of our experience was in Spanish restaurants, where the wine lists were not too deep. Mostly, we ordered Montecillo and Torres Sangre de Toro; nothing wrong with them but not a real introduction to what the Spaniards are capable of.

Little by little, the restaurants we frequented featured more robust wine lists. By then, we knew that the better wines (or more accurately, the better wines we had heard of) came from Rioja and were made of Tempranillo grapes. (We didn’t drink much Spanish white wine.) And indeed Rioja makes some fine wines, but then we discovered that off to the west, there were excellent wines being made in the Ribiero de Duero. And there were other grapes, such as Garnacha and Monastrell. (Only much later did we learn that those grapes were the same as – and maybe the predecessors of – what the French know as Grenache and Mourvèdre.)

Little by little, we started drinking wines from Zaragoza (made of Cariñena, the same as Carignan), Catalunya and the Priorat (made of Mencia grapes, the same as nothing else). For the most part, these were still consumed in restaurants, though there were a few we found in local wine stores. We still stayed with inexpensive Spanish wines, since we didn’t know much about what to buy. And some of those less pricey wines, such as Borsao’s Tres Picos from Aragon were pretty good.

Then we began to travel in Spain and our wine tasting adventures went in both directions. At tapas bars, we would order a tinto (occasionally a blanco) and got a glass of whatever and a little bit to eat. We certainly didn’t expand our understanding of quality Spanish wines.

But we did eat in better Spanish restaurants and, ignorant as we were of their wines, let the sommeliers help us. Now our eyes were opened, along with our noses and mouths. For one thing, we found out that mass producers such as Torres and Marques de Riscal made some top end wines we couldn’t find back home. For another, we discovered wine makers such as Muga, Pesquera and Vega Sicilia that made excellent wines that we could find in North American stores.

We still drink more wines from other regions than we do from Spain, but we have a greater appreciation of the quality of Spanish wines. We are also impressed by the variety of wines made there. We enjoy the wines we have with paella at local Spanish restaurants and we have much better knowledge of what’s in the bottles.

The Heat Is On

We get to meet many people on the wine trade, including wine makers and vineyard representatives. In recent years, these people have all expressed a consistent worry: Climate change is changing the conditions in which wine is made and, in some cases, the wine itself.

Wine grapes love warm, sunny weather. They detest frosts once the vines begin to bud. Of course, they want to be watered by gentle rainfall, but only at certain times of the year, in spring and summer. But not at harvest time! Yes, changing climate changes are making for hotter days over longer periods. But it is also resulting in unexpected cold in the spring months and long-lasting deluges at, so it seems, all the wrong times.

Photo courtesy of AccuWeather.

Hotter summers lead to greater sugar content in the grapes, which in turn can be harvested sooner. These sugar-laden grapes produce wines with higher (and ever higher) alcohol levels, but without the acidity slower ripening would produce. When tasting wines in the year or two after scorching summers, visitors to wineries should be alert to power-hitting wines that seem to lack any liveliness on the tongue.

We are not yet seeing great wines coming from northern-most climes. There’s no reason to expect great Norwegian wine anytime soon. But the temperatures are changing the grapes used in some familiar wines. For example, Merlot is becoming more prevalent in Left Bank Bordeaux wines, where Cabernet Sauvignon has reigned for centuries. Moreover, the Bordelais are now allowing the use of new grapes such as Marselan and Touriga Nacional in addition to the traditional five (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec). So what winery visitors will get in the glasses in coming years may be significantly different than the Bordeaux wines as they have been, even in recent years.

And it’s not just heat. Earlier springs lead to bud break in months that can still experience cold snaps and frost. As recently as 2022, there have been damaging frosts in California’s most famed grape growing areas, to say nothing of those affecting Oregon, Washington and British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. Add to that the flooding that occurs when sudden spring warmth melts the mountains’ snow pack. Russian River suffers from these floods often; January of 2019 saw a record crest in that river as well as floods almost as high in 2023. Wine tasters should plan their travels accordingly.

All of this is to say that for those of us who love well-made wine and visiting wineries for tasting had better be aware of what changing weather patterns are doing to vineyards and wines. It is possible that there will be better wines in the future from places that are unanticipated at present. But there is more to great wine than great grapes. It took generations and fortunes to make Bordeaux, Tuscany, Rioja and Napa Valley wines and wineries what they are today. Speaking for ourselves at Power Tasting and, we’re sure, for our readers as well, we don’t have the time to wait for superb wines to come from Trondheim.

Trefethen Family Vineyards

Somehow, in ten-plus years of publishing Power Tasting, we’ve never gotten around to writing about Trefethen. Shame on us, because Trefethen is a great winery, a pioneer in Napa Valley and a winery that offers a memorable experience to visitors. We have tasted there numerous times over the years and are pleased to look back on our visits there.

The Trefethen winery. Photo courtesy of Trefethen.

Trefethen is located in Napa Valley on Oak Knoll Avenue, just off of Route 29, and is one of the first wineries encountered as you drive north. (Think of that, day trippers.) As you approach the winery, you see a very large farmhouse, which is a tale in itself. There has been a winery on this property in this building, off and on since 1886. The building you can see today has been used, abandoned and restored several times. When the Trefethen family took over the property in 1968, they had to restore a bat-infested, leaky old edifice. There they made wine and welcomed the public to taste it.

Then in 2014, the old winery was badly shaken in a 6.0 earthquake. Rather than tear it down, the Trefethens decided to make heroic efforts to restore the building once again, in a more seismic-protected manner. They significantly changed the tasting room as well. Prior to 2014, the Trefethen tasting room had a rustic look and several bars, dispensing generous pours to visitors. While the restoration work was going on, we once had a tasting under a plastic tent, which was not the ideal tasting ambience. The décor of the rebuilt tasting room has gone from rustic to what we would call elegant antique. And like almost all Napa Valley wineries, tastings are now sit down affairs.

A legacy tasting. Photo courtesy of Trefethen.

One of the reasons we are including Trefethen in this issue of Power Tasting is their commitment to sustainability. They have actually won awards in that regard. As an organization that has thrived under three generations of the family, they express a desire to keep it going for at least another three. They encourage biodiversity with resting places for native species of birds (including those old bats, even if they’re not birds). It works out well, because the flying friends capture rodents and insects who would like to make a meal out of grapes. They keep much of the area where they have vineyards wild and free. Trefethen is also invested in carbon capture to keep the air fresh and soil controls by composing everything but the grape juice.

Does any of this show up in the glass? We’re not viniculturists and Power Tasting doesn’t review wines, but we know that Trefethen’s wines have been award-winning for decades. They do make whites and a rosé, but Trefethen has built its reputation on wines made from Bordeaux grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvignon (it is in Napa Valley, after all).

As most wineries do, Trefethen offers some reserve tastings of older and limited distribution wines as well as a tasting of recent releases. With no disrespect to the quality of the reserve wines they serve, we have found that the overall experience of wine tasting at Trefethen is more pleasant in the big house with the newer wines.

Send in the Clones

We recently received a newsletter from Etude, a winery where we’re members, on the subject of Pinot Noir clones. The subject of clones seems to be getting more attention recently, and this item further piqued our curiosity.

Pommard 5 clone of Pinot Noir. Photo courtesy of Etude Winery.

First of all, what are clones in the world of wine? If we were vinicultural scientists, we could give a long, complicated answer but we are just humble wine tasters. Simply put, a clone is a variety of a particular grape that is chosen by a vineyard owner because of its characteristics of taste, aroma or color. It is propagated by grafting a cutting from a desired vine onto existing rootstock. (That’s how cuttings from American vines saved French wineries from phylloxera in the 19th century.)

Winemakers select specific clones to emphasize certain qualities that benefit from the terroir of their vineyards. Also, some clones are more prolific than others, so a particular clone may be chosen just for the volume of the harvest. So, for example, the qualities of the Pinot Noir Dijon 777 clone are very dependent on the individual vineyard, whereas the Dijon 115 clone is most likely to produce a complete wine, without blending, and is thus the most widely planted (at least in the US).

Note that Dijon is a city in the Côte d’Or in Burgundy as is Pommard, which also has numerous clones. This is important because the type of wine we drink today has been made in Burgundy longer than anywhere else. With all that time, more clones have been cultivated for Pinot Noir than for any other varietal. Yes, there are clones of just about every other grape, but the differences between two Cabernet Sauvignon clones is nowhere near as great as between, for example, a Dijon and a Pommard clone of Pinot Noir.

Part of the reason that clones are receiving more attention these days is undoubtedly the increasing sophistication of wine lovers willing to pay the cost differential for a single clone wine. But we think that what is driving the discussion even more is that climate change is creating stress for some clones more than others. As a general rule, Pinot Noir grapes do best with warm afternoons and cool nights. Evidently, Dijon clones are more susceptible to warming temperatures – really hot afternoons and warmer temperatures overnight – than are Pommard clones. For a vintner who has heavily planted, say, Dijon 115, the prospect of ripping out vines and replanting his vineyard can be very daunting.

Increasingly, vineyard managers are planting so-called “heritage” clones with names like Swan or Calera. They seem to be doing better in warmer climates than the more widely planted grape clones. Etude’s Heirloom Pinot Noir is made from these clones.

What does this mean to the average wine taster? On the one hand, not much; it’s only what’s in the glass that counts. On the other hand, recognizing that certain clones produce flavors and aromas that one prefers (or not) can help in selecting wines that meet his or her tastes.

Aigues-Mortes, France

Aigues-Mortes is an almost perfectly preserved medieval village where they drink a lot of rosé wine. It is small but it has a large history. The Romans were there; in fact they probably established Aigues-Mortes as a port a few thousand years ago. Charlemagne was there and erected a nearby tower which is still a part of the fortified walls of the village. Two of the Renaissance’s mightiest rulers, The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Francois I, King of France, met there to settle their differences in 1538.

The walls of Aigues-Mortes

They do love their rosé there. As you drive into town you’ll see a large flamingo of the style that used to grace suburban lawns in the 1950’s. (It’s pink, get it?) The next thing you’ll see is the walls that surround the town. They’re high (36 feet), thick (10 feet) and they surround Aigues-Mortes. Visitors don’t require too much imagination to see archers protecting the villagers from advancing armies. Once within the walls, however, everything is peaceful and serene. The streets are narrow, with neatly preserved stone houses on either side, most sporting flower boxes to beautify their hometown.

The Place St. Louis in Aigues-Mortes.

In the middle of the village is the Place St. Louis. Now this particular saint was also King Louis IX who actually had some knowledge of Aigues-Mortes. He’s the one who built the Tower of Constance which is still a part of the walls today. He sailed, twice, from Aigues-Mortes off to the Crusades. And of course a statue of this saintly king stands in the main square today. There is a small church just off the square, Notre-Dame-des-Sablons or Our Lady of the Sands. (There is no lack of sand in the area around Aigues-Mortes, with salt marshes today between the town and the Mediterranean.) The church also dates to Saint Louis’ time – he may have had it built – and the intervening 800 years have seen a lot of religious turmoil there.

Just behind the statue is a square surrounded by cafés and restaurants, all with huge umbrellas out front. Having some shade is a good thing, as it can get pretty warm in the south of France, especially at the time of a midday meal. As far as we could tell they all serve the same type of fare: southern French cuisine with an accent on seafood. And they all serve the same kind of wine: rosé. There’s something special about sitting under an umbrella in the south of France drinking local wine along with your freshly caught fish.

The region around Aigues-Mortes is called the Camargue. Rosé is the kind of wine they make there. (The most widely sold is Listel, which is also fairly available in North America.) And, located where it is, the Camargue is feeling the effects of climate change. As everywhere, higher temperatures are affecting sugar content and thus alcohol levels. Grape vines growing on sandy soils are more likely to feel the effects of droughts. And the rising sea levels are creating problems of salinity in the soils of the Camargue. As winemakers adapt to changing conditions, the rosés of Aigues-Mortes may not be the flamingo-pale pink wines of the future.

As to the name, Aigues is a derived form of the Latin word aqua, or water. Mortes is old French for dead. So Dead Water refers to the salt marshes that are between the town and the sea. Ignore that, and enjoy your time in Aigues-Mortes.

Old and New Wines

A new car is the pride and joy of your driveway. There’s a special feeling when you put on a new suit. But tasting new wines doesn’t always bring the same enjoyment. There’s such a thing as a wine that’s too new. We once had the experience of a private visit to a fine winery in Bordeaux, in September. The grapes had just been pressed and the juice had been fermented only a few days before. Our host, with a subtle smile, gave us a little taste. Ugh! It was awful, although we knew that in the years to come it would become wonderful.

That’s an extreme case of a truism: Wine improves over time. Like so many truisms, this one comes with lots of exceptions. Some wines improve over time. At a certain point they stop improving. Beyond that point, many of them become worse. And then a lot worse.

The cellar at Volpaia in Tuscany.

For the most part, wineries offer the latest releases for their wine tastings. There is an implied commitment that once the wine is put up for sale, it’s drinkable. Fair enough, but that doesn’t mean it’s at its peak. Many wineries offer tastings of so-called library wines, of older vintages that are supposed to show what the potential these wines have for improvement over time.

Here are a few tips for balancing the new and the old wines you might have the opportunity to sip when you visit a winery.

Use your imagination. As you taste a recently released wine – or even better, if you are offered a barrel tasting – mentally trick your nose and tongue into recognizing what a wine could be, beyond what it is. Wine critics and importers do this all the time. Oh, you’re not a critic or an importer? Do your best or consider some of these other tips.
“Age” the wine artificially. As we have written previously, we bring a clef du vin (or wine key) with us. This handy little tool simulates the aging process, giving an idea of what a wine might become. There’s no way to know if it creates the exact tastes and aromas that will be there five years hence, but it gives you an idea.
Compare a library wine to the current bottling. The 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon may be delightful, but the 2010 of the same grape is profound. Or not. Some people prefer the youthful exuberance of newly bottled wines to old, tired stuff. Then there are those who won’t open a bottle for the first decade after the grapes were picked. There’s nothing like a side-by-side comparison to calibrate your palate.
Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. Just because you paid extra to sip a vintage from yesteryear doesn’t force you to prefer it. And if you liked the older wine at one vineyard more than another, that’s okay too. It’s okay to speak your mind, but do so quietly if you’re not a fan of the library wine you’re tasting. Of course, if you do think the older wine is fantastic, say so openly and with gusto.

The Ferry Building

For many Americans (and visitors from abroad as well, for that matter), wine tasting in the US means a trip to Napa Valley and maybe Sonoma County if they’re adventurous. There are other vineyard areas dotted around California, but these are surely the Big Two. If visitors do not reside in Northern California, they probably arrive by air, usually at San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Then, as we often do, they drive north to either the Golden Gate or the Bay Bridge, barely passing through San Franciso itself.

Photo courtesy of the Ferry Building Marketplace.

That’s a shame, because San Francisco is a beautiful city with many attractions. It’s worth taking a day or so away from wine tasting and stop at the City on the Bay. (Actually, there are two; Oakland is on the same bay. But as Gertrude Stein said of the second city, there’s no there there.) We’d like to present one of our favorite stops in Frisco (a San Francisco term the locals hate): the Ferry Building.

It is a handsome building with a clock tower that once was a highlight of the San Francisco skyline. All the tall buildings obscure it now, but it still is a central part of the harbor. Its original use, as the name implies, was to provide an entry point to the city for ferry boats arriving and departing from all points of the bay. At the height of its usage, thousands of passengers passed through every day and the grand hall of the building, known as the Nave, was used for baggage and freight handling.

When the two bridges were erected, ferry traffic abated and the Ferry Building fell into disrepair. Then in the early 2000s, the building was lovingly repaired, restored and reopened as a marketplace, while still acting as the terminus for ferry traffic, which has once more picked up in popularity.

Photo courtesy of Project for Public Spaces.

Today, the Ferry Building is a foodie’s wonderland. There are a few bakeries (think sourdough), a charcuterie, a fromagerie (cheese shop) that sells all the Cowgirl Creamery cheeses and a shop that sells just mushrooms. Don’t overlook the chocolatery, the patisserie, the empanada maker, the Japanese deli, and, and, and…Oh, yes, and the wine shop.

The Farmers Market is open year-round on Saturdays and hosts more than 100 stalls featuring the produce that Northern California is famous for. (Yes, they grow fruits and vegetables there, other than grapes.) One nice little feature of the Saturday market is what they call the Veggie Valet, where you can temporarily drop off your purchases, while you dine or tour around. There are also smaller markets on Tuesday and Thursday markets. The city estimates that 25,000 people shop at the Farmers Market every week.

There are a number of restaurants in the Ferry building that we have enjoyed, although each visit seem to offer a different roster. One of them is the same Gott’s Roadside that we enjoy in St. Helena in Napa Valley. We miss the Slanted Door, our favorite Vietnamese restaurant anywhere, that didn’t make it through the pandemic. We understand that there are plans to reopen it soon.

Sure, we understand the urge to get right out to the vineyards. But give your heart a chance to be left in San Francisco as well.