Category: Experiences

In these days of drought, it’s hard to believe that not that long ago the issue facing winery owners was too much rain, rather than not enough.  Beginning on January 8, 1995 there was heavy rainfall in Napa and Sonoma counties, causing the Russian River and the Napa River to overflow their banks.    This had a major impact on tourism as many likely visitors were scared away.  It was not as much of a crisis as it would have been in the summer or at harvest-time, but news reports were pretty frightening anyway: 500 people displaced; roads closed for as much as two days; lost sales for those vintners who only sold at their wineries.

In the midst of all this, Steve was to attend a major conference in his field (that is, information security, which he does when he’s not tasting wine).  The conference was in San Francisco.  Not only that, but his boss was planning to attend with him.  The boss knew that Steve had visited Napa Valley often and suggested that they get to San Francisco a few days before the conference and go wine tasting.  This is how Steve became a chauffeur and sommelier for his manager and said manager’s girlfriend, who came along as well.

Now the relationship among the three was quite cordial but it’s never a good idea to get one’s boss stuck on a road that has been flooded out.  Keep in mind that many well-known wineries had closed in deference to the rising waters.  The Napa River had crested just north of Yountville and the Yountville Cross Road, one of the Valley’s major east-west thoroughfares had been washed out.  That meant that several wineries were difficult to reach and a few were inaccessible altogether.  Steve well remembers pulling up to the old Silver Oak winery, north of the worst inundation, only to find the doors boarded up with sandbags outside.

So it took some maneuvering to find roads that were dry and wineries that were open.  Cell phones weren’t common in those days, so there was no chance of calling ahead and asking if anyone was serving wine that day.  Steve’s manager was busily studying a map, but Steve had been around the region often enough that he was able to stick to the relatively higher Silverado Trail and then make excursions onto the crossing roads that appeared open.  He also had a good enough mental picture of Napa Valley, simpler in that bygone era, to know where the better wineries were.  Or at least he thought he did, which is nearly the same thing.  He just pulled onto a road, found an open winery and pretended that was where he was heading all along.

Now there are some lessons to be learned from all this.  First, while we don’t recommend visiting Wine Country when there’s a major flood, there is a lot to be said for going wine tasting in rainy or cold weather (which we have done several times since).  There are no crowds – heck, there’s almost nobody there – and wine servers can be much more attentive and maybe offer you something they would not consider serving in better times.

Second, wine tasting has become a major tourism industry.  Of course, there would be no tourists if there were no wine, but Napa Valley in particular has been described as Disneyland for adults.  However, the infrastructure is still farm land.  You may not even realize how congested it is until you see Wine Country with nobody in it.

And finally, that visit helped create a better relationship with Steve’s boss, not that it was bad to begin with.  Still, like fishermen who can talk for hours about the big one that got away, Steve and his manager were able to tell increasingly harrowing stories about tasting wine in the face of surging flood waters.

We are member of a few California wine clubs that we visit once a year, but when one of our clubs visits us in New York, that’s special!

Etude Wines, together with their sister wineries Stags’ Leap, Beringer and Chateau St. Jean, was taking a road trip to New York in May. We were invited as club members of Etude, one of our favorite Pinot Noirs in the Napa Valley.  The tasting was held in two private rooms of a steakhouse restaurant in Manhattan, giving us a wonderful opportunity to go to a wine tasting of Napa Valley wines in New York City, without taking a flight.

Each winery was offering the best of their current releases and of winery-exclusives as they call them, which means their top wines.  Etude was serving our favorite Pinot Noir “Heirloom” and their 2012 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon (Etude wines have won many awards).  Beringer had their 2012 Steinhauer Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2012 Private Reserve Cabernet. Over the years, Beringer has had more placements on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list than any other winery in the world, Stags’ Leap was pouring an amazing rosé “Amparo” and the wine they are best known for, their Ne Cede Malis Petite Sirah, Chateau St. Jean had their famous 2012 Cinq Cépages.  And all of them were offering tastes, as many as you wanted!

Although all of them served a variety of wines, leaning more to red than white, each one had different leading wines: pure Cabernet Sauvignons, a Bordeaux blend, a Pinot Noir, a rosé and a Petite Sirah. This gave the attendees a chance to sample some outstanding examples of different wines, with some degree of overlap for comparison’s sake.  Keeping in mind that all the wines offered were top-flight, this was a fascinating treat for the taste buds.

Now the food pairing…. oysters, shrimps, clams, sliced filet mignon on bread, etc.  It was a fantastic idea to hold the wine tasting in a steakhouse and have the opportunity to have a food paring with those wonderful wines.  Some of them are big wines, steak wines, and the Pinot Noir that pair so well with seafood.

Some wineries were represented by their Wine Club “Ambassador”, as they call the person in charge of the wine clubs, so it was an opportunity for them to reach to their sisters’ winery club members and get them into their clubs, but for us a chance to meet those representatives and have a chat about their wines and clubs.

What a memorable wine tasting experience!  Another advantage of being member of wine clubs.

The reason to go wine tasting is to taste wine.  Well, yeah, but it’s not the only reason.  For one thing, there’s the scenery.  We have found that virtually any place where grapes are grown for wine is beautiful, with rows of vines arrayed across a field or a hillside.  For us city-dwellers, the only way we’re going to see these sights is to drive there.  And not all roads are created equal.

Some are just ways to get from one grape-growing region to another.  Highway 101, which runs through Sonoma County, is one of these.  So is the Long island Expressway, which takes you to the North Fork vineyards.  Others are the main roads that have numerous wineries on either side.  The sight of one famous establishment after the other can be quite thrilling, like a wine shop with buildings instead of shelves.  Napa Valley’s Route 29 is such a road as is the Route du Vin in Burgundy’s Cote d’Or.  If you are a fan of going wine tasting, as we are, you will definitely take these roads one day.

And then there are the roads that are, in themselves, destinations.  They’re just gorgeous, aesthetic experiences when you’re there.  It’s good to know that there are wineries and vineyards nearby but these roads are worth driving on just for the experience of seeing them.   One that we particularly like is Chalk Hill Road in Sonoma.  Assuming you are coming from the aforementioned Route 101, take the Old Redwood Highway exit on the east side and go a short distance to Pleasant Avenue.  Shortly thereafter, turn left on Chalk Hill Road.

The road goes from Route 101 to Route 128, which will take you either to Knights Valley to the south or Alexander Valley to the north.  There are wineries along the way to visit, but not many.  They include some of Sonoma’s finest, including the eponymous Chalk Hill, Verité, and Lancaster.  The drive will take you through forests, fields and hills, with virtually no houses or even wineries that you can see from the road.  There are horses in some of those fields who like to take a run every now and again.  It being California, the hills are usually a light tan, with clumps of trees and greenery to color the view.

Pictures don’t do Chalk Hill Road any justice.  You need to see the dappling of shadow and sunlight as you drive along, feel the peacefulness of a country road with hardly any other drivers on it, hear the sound of nothing more than your car…which almost but not quite spoils it.

We recommend that you make your way there on a visit to Sonoma.  You won’t be disappointed by the wines you try (although you may be horrified by the tasting fees) and you will feel that you’ve gotten more than wine from Wine Country.

For us, wine tasting is fairly rudimentary: rent a car, drive to the wineries, go from place to place sampling as much as we feel like with ample prudence, then drive back to wherever we started the day.  We watch tourists pour off of buses with snobbish scorn: “What do they know about wine?”  Even worse are the stretch limos that shuttle bachelorette parties from winery to winery, fifteen previously over-served twenty-somethings who scream and giggle and generally drive both winery employees and serious tasters to run, not walk, in the other direction.  And it’s not just giggly girls.    We see long black Cadillacs pull up with a gang of conventioneers playing hooky in Wine Country.  They can disrupt a tasting room from the moment they enter.  Maybe some of these people really do appreciate what they’re tasting, but whether because of noisiness or haughtiness they do spoil the experience for us and maybe everyone else.

And then once – just once – we were the ones filling the limo with people who had little or no familiarity with wine tasting.  At one point in his career, Steve led a national consulting practice and held a leadership meeting on a Friday in Portland, Oregon.  Since there was budget for “team-building”, he invited the consultants and their significant others to take a day trip that Saturday to the Willamette Valley.  The event was held in mid-January, and the day dawned brisk and sunny.

In a rented, chauffeured stretch, nine of us headed for the hills of northern Oregon.  The Willamette Valley is only forty minutes from downtown Portland, if there is no traffic and at that time of year visitors and thus cars are few.  None of Steve’s colleagues had been wine tasting before so there was both expectancy and a little trepidation in the car as we drove south.

If you arrive in the little town of Dundee, you’ll find Argyle winery on the main road.  Argyle is best known for its sparkling wines and Chardonnays and the Pinot Noirs aren’t bad either.  They have a tasting room, with the vines elsewhere in the valley.  Our friends seemed a little ill at ease at first but a few sips loosened them up.  “Hey, this is fun” was the general sentiment.

We continued down the Pacific Highway, had lunch and turned up Archery Summit Road, leading to the Archery Summit, Domaine Drouhin and Domaine Serene wineries.  Each one was higher up the hill and therefore had a better view.  This was really the heart of Pinot Noir country, with several award winning wines for all of us to try.

We all learned a few things that day.  For one, Steve’s colleagues learned about wine tasting.  The day truly did build some team spirit, experiencing new things together.  (It was our first trip to the Willamette Valley, so we were learning as well.)  It was fun to see our friends open up to the wine tasting experience.  Of course, they had all drunk wine before but few if any paid much attention to it.  They had rarely if ever compared wines side by side and tried to detect the differences.  It was our pleasure to share that appreciation with them.

We quickly realized that it’s nice to have someone else do the driving.  Of course, that makes a visit more expensive but it is also less stressful.  We still didn’t want to get drunk, but we could take a few more second sips without worries.  The stretch limo added some glamor, but other than for the size of the group, it wasn’t necessary; just being chauffeured around was more than sufficient.

And we re-learned that wine tasting in the off-season offers its own rewards: no buses, no crowds, and time to savor the wines because the server wasn’t stressed either.  If ever life presents you with the chance to visit Wine Country that way, take it.

We are lucky to live in one of the most exciting and amazing cities in the world, New York City, which has everything and so much to offer.  For wine lovers, there are wine tastings all around the city, usually sponsored by wine stores and often free of charge.  Some wine stores advertise their events in the newspapers, some on their website or in their stores.  It is a great opportunity to discover a new wine or to meet the winemaker.

Once Sherry-Lehmann (one of the finer wine stores in New York) had a tasting of Napa Valley Stag’s Leap Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon (which happened to be one of Lucie’s top favorites) and had invited the founder and very famous winemaker of Stag’s Leap, Mr. Warren Winiarski.  We knew about Mr. Winiarski from the book Judgment of Paris, which told how its 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon won first place against ten top French and California red wines in a blind taste test by leading French wine experts.  Without hesitation, Lucie took the subway with the intention, of course, of buying a couple of bottles of Artemis, but particularly to have the chance to meet with Mr. Winiarski.  She had a nice chat with him, had him sign our bottles and even had a little extra, a kiss on the cheek from the famous Mr. Winiarski.   “What an interesting and charming man!” she still says.  This is an opportunity to meet with the guy that made the wine you love so much, or the one you’re about to discover, and you’ll never forget that encounter with the winemaker whenever you open one of his bottles.

There are so many classes that one can take, from the classes for the beginners, to a Pinot Noir lecture and tasting, to Wine and Food Pairing, to Italian Wines, etc.  Those classes usually include a lecture and a wine tasting, often served with bread and cheese.  It is a great chance to learn about wine without leaving your own town.  Should you have never heard about those classes in your town, we would suggest you walk to your favorite wine store and ask them; if they do not have any wine tasting or classes, maybe you could suggest them to do so.

As we said, living in New York City offers a lot of opportunities where so many wine stores have wine classes and wine tastings.  We have been attending some of those classes and always go away with more knowledge, be it a class to discover different wine making regions of Italy, a tasting of American versus French Pinot Noir, food and wine pairing or Rhône wines.

We love to travel to Wine Country, but we also love to stop at a wine store and have a tasting … without leaving town!

In the 1970’s, just after the famous Judgement of Paris showed how great California wines had become, Steve went wine tasting for the first time.  He remembers well the sensation, as he was driving along Route 29 in the Napa Valley, that he was in a wine shop only it wasn’t labels he was passing by but wineries.  Domaine Chandon, Heitz, Louis Martini – all these famous places along the road!  And every place offered something to taste and for free. It was wonderful.

In our travels, we have re-experienced that sensation many times and so can you.  Each visit to a wine-growing region unknown to you brings back that same sense of an adventure about to unroll.  Even with a GPS, you don’t really know where you are going.  Very often, most of the wineries are not very well known to you.  Maybe you have never heard of any of them.  What should you do?

One option is to take a tour, but we do not recommend it.  Tour operators are interested in volume, not quality.  They choose wineries that can accommodate large groups, with wines that appeal to the mass market.  It is better for them to offer wines that everyone can enjoy somewhat than expensive wines and expensive tastings that are oriented to connoisseurs.  It is bad enough when 30 people show up at a winery all wanting to be served at once.  It’s even worse when you’re in that group.  You have no time for conversation, for learning, for savoring something unique.  And you definitely won’t be offered that special wine they keep below the counter for those who are willing to spend more time to really understand a winery’s production.

The best bet is to get to the region you’re visiting and stop at the first winery you see.  It may be a lucky hit, with knowledgeable people, lovely décor and fine wines.  But even if it isn’t, it will have two things you want: a map and someone you can ask: “We’re new here.  Which wineries do you suggest we try?”  Almost without exception, we have found that wine people love to talk and love to give advice.  Your taste may not be the same as theirs, so you might want to say, at your next stop, “The people at Chateau X recommended your wines.  What can you recommend that might be a little different?”  A truly helpful server should ask you, “Well, what kind of wine do you like?” and then direct you to light whites, heavy reds and everything in between.

Of course, this gets a little trickier when the region you are visiting is in a non-English speaking country.  Fortunately, English has become the world’s second language so you can usually have a passable conversation.  We have also engaged in a fair amount of arm-waving, map-pointing and general looking lost.  It has always worked and we have often been directed to some of the most amazing wineries we have ever visited.

The great likelihood, when you’re tasting in a region you’re not familiar with, is that the wines aren’t going to be exactly what you think they’ll be.  For example, a California Syrah is different from a French Syrah which isn’t the same as an Australian Shiraz.  Moreover, a Southern Rhone Syrah is different than one from the north.  You need not only to be open to these differences but to relish them.  That’s what wine tasting is all about.  It’s not a search for novelty for its own sake but rather to enjoy different winemakers’ expressions of the soil, the climate and the traditions of each locale.  When you taste something unexpectedly wonderful, you’ve gotten a sense of what makes wine so fascinating: the variety, the personality, the subtlety and the achievement that each new harvest brings.

Sometimes, you’ll find wines made from grapes you’ve never heard of.  Did you ever have an Insolia?  It’s a wonderful white grape from Sicily that makes some of the most elegant white wines we’ve tasted in a while.  How about Pinotage?  Cannonau? Canaiolo?  Open your mind when you open your mouth and you’ll get the most out of your visit.

Finally, make comparisons with wines you know, but only after you’ve finished for the day.  If you say to yourself, “This is like XYZ Vineyards back home” you’ll always have the taste of XYZ on your mind and on your palate and you’ll find it hard to judge the wines you’re tasting on their own merits.

So, wherever you go, follow the open road.  It leads to Wine Country.

Despite the title, this is not really an article about wine clubs.  In keeping with the Power Tasting credo, we are writing about the effect wine clubs have on the experience tasters have when visiting Wine Country.

These clubs are primarily an American phenomenon, although we have recently learned that a few European wineries are considering them as well.  Here are the basics:  joining a club is free but it entails a commitment to receive shipments from one to many times a year.   There are some clubs that require you to buy as few as six bottles annually and many call for purchasing a case each year.  Some allow you to choose what you want to receive but most will send you whatever they want to send you (usually the bottles they have trouble selling otherwise).  In return, you receive a discount on purchases, free tastings when you visit their wineries and invitations to special events.

[There are a lot of qualifiers here: “some”, “many”, “most”.  That’s because each winery structures their clubs differently.  Be sure to read the fine print if you plan to join.]

Before considering the benefits of membership, let’s look at the negative impacts on wine tasting visits.  At some wineries, especially those with sit-down tastings, the servers do a lot of pressure selling.  We have had bad experiences at Far Niente, Nickel & Nickel and Domaine Carneros in that regard.  There you are, at a table full of bottles and glasses, and the nice person who has just taken you on a tour and poured you some wine says, “No pressure, but…” and begins the sales pitch.  If you have some decent sales resistance, it’s no problem.  But it does detract from what would otherwise be a very pleasant experience.  And since there is usually a fairly hefty charge for these seated tastings, you’ve paid to be a sales target.  If you’ve ever been to a sales meeting for time shares, you will recognize the nasty feeling it leaves with you.

On the other hand, being a member can really enhance your overall tasting experience.  At the present time, we are members of six clubs, and there are about as many again that we once joined and then left.  As members, you are more likely to return to that winery often and the staff will get to know you.  That alone makes your visit more pleasant. In most cases, wineries have a menu of what is available for tasting that day.  However, wineries generally have no inhibitions about opening everything they have for people who are already committed to purchase in quantity every year.  So you wind up with more to taste of wines you’ve already selected as favorites.  The fact that you’ve tasted all of them in the past is no drawback; each wine is different each year.

Many wineries have special areas that are for members only.  A bit snobbish perhaps, but you’ll appreciate this if you’re visiting on a weekend.  And you can bring a few friends with you, so having a private area makes it more fun for your small party.

What we have found best of all is the invitations we receive to our clubs’ private parties.  If you reside near the wineries, you can really live it up.  For those like ourselves who need to take a plane and stay at a hotel, it’s difficult to take advantage.  Still, the ones we’ve attended range from good fun to grand events.  We have always had the chance to meet and chat with the winemakers and often the winery owners (although now that so many are owned by big corporations, that’s harder to do).  They always serve food that complements their wines.  (We once decoded a particularly good ragu and will post the recipe separately.)

The guest of honor at Etude’s annual pig roast

 And then then there are the big blowouts.  Last summer we took up the invitation to Etude’s annual pig roast.  Seated at a table on the lawn outside the winery, we feasted on a whole porker that had roasted over an open fire all day.  Cooks brushed it regularly with olive oil soaked laurel branches.  We were fortunate to sit next to Jon Priest, the winemaker-in-chief.  Oh, and the wines – a selection of pinots from across the top of Etude’s line, including Heirloom, their finest.  Was it worth the membership?  It sure was!

Lucie sips while Etude’s Jon Priest says a few words

Wine tasting is an avocation that can be followed around the world. Between the two of us, we have gone wine tasting in France, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Québec and of course in many places in the United States. It is no secret that California has the most wineries and that the most famous ones are just north of San Francisco, in Napa and Sonoma counties. But only in these counties, to our knowledge and experience, are there destination wineries that are more about the place than about the wine.

There are many wineries that are in buildings of architectural interest. Chateau Montelena, Jordan, Duckhorn and the new Stag’s Leap Vineyards spring to mind. However, the reason to go these places is not to admire the structures but to enjoy the wines they make. The beauty of the places enhances the experience, to be sure, but the wine’s the thing. There are others where the winery is designed to awe the visitor before the first sip is taken. The experience is about architecture, interior design, high-end shopping and oh, yes, there is wine to be tasted. A few of the leading exponents of this view of wine tasting are Darioush in Napa, Castello di Ameroso in Calistoga and the Francis Ford Coppola winery in Geyserville.

Darioush Winery

Now, it should be stated that Darioush makes good wine and is best known for its Shiraz. The owner is a wealthy Iranian emigrant who, in entering the wine trade, decided to recreate the glory that was ancient Persia. It is truly beautiful and very much over the top. We like the wine but not the wine tasting experience when we have visited there. It’s just not for us.

Castello di Amoroso is a replica of a castle in Tuscany and a rather good replica at that. It attracts hordes of tourists. There is even a fee to enter the castle. It’s hard to believe that all those tourists are there just to taste an American Sangiovese. And at Coppola Winery, the movie director Francis Coppola, in addition to having a museum of his films, has a swimming pool available to vacationers. No more need be said.

Which is not to say that places like these are not for you. Wine tasting in Northern California has become Disneyland for adults and if that’s what appeals to you on your vacation, go right ahead. We like Disneyland; we just don’t want to go there for wine. That’s us, not you.

Even if you agree with us, we think you should try these palaces on occasion. For one thing, the wines can be very good and shouldn’t be overlooked. For another, just because we find Darioush to be too, too much you may not agree. After all, why is a winery visit that combines fine art (Hess Collection, Clos Pegase), or beautiful views (Silverado, William Hill) or fine food (Domaine Chandon) any less worthy than one that includes a palatial edifice? Wine tasting, like wine itself, is a matter of taste.

Our tastes run towards wineries where we can chat with someone very knowledgeable (especially if it is the winemaker) and enjoy a wonderful and personalized experience built around very fine wines. Often, tasting at these vineyards requires an appointment and in some cases can be rather pricey. Some would find wine tasting in these circumstances to be snobbish or intimidating. Opus One and Verité, for two examples, might fall into this category and we do love their wines. Again, it’s certainly not for everyone.

If you have some experience visiting wineries in Napa and Sonoma, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you like and what you don’t like. If you are new to wine tasting, it’s worthwhile to read up in advance and try different sorts of wineries that seem to appeal to your taste and your pocketbook. And even if you know your way around, try something that breaks your personal mold every now and again. You might be pleasantly surprised.

 

A few weeks ago there was a tasting of Bordeaux wines in New York City. Organized by the wine critic James Suckling, it gave attendees the opportunity to try a wide variety of wines from around the Bordeaux region, from St. Estephe to St. Emilion to Sauternes. The tasting was held in a restaurant better known for musical events than degustations and the sponsors may have sold more tickets than the space could hold comfortably. Lucie and Steve were there and came away with different impressions, not of the wines themselves, but of the experience. Since the wine tasting experience is the subject matter of Power Tasting, we would like to offer our points of view.

At one point in his life, Steve was quite certain that all the world’s best wines came from Bordeaux. Period. He has broadened his horizons since then but still thinks that Bordeaux’s great chateaux make wines that are among the world’s finest. And this tasting offered quite a few that were special: classified growths from the Medoc, grands crus classés from St. Emilion, and crus classés from Graves. There were also other wines, some of lesser renown and some of lesser quality.

Many of these wines are very expensive these days. Steve remembers well that when he first started buying fine wines, he was able to buy Chateau Pontet-Canet for ten dollars. (Yes, that was long ago.) He was able to taste it again that day, though at more than $250 a bottle, it doesn’t grace our table very often. And that was the point of this wine tasting: to have the chance to taste wines – fantastic wines from excellent vintages – that we otherwise would not have the chance to savor.

Most of the wines presented were from the 2009 and 2010 vintages, two of the best reputed but still young. Many offered 2012 as well, not as highly rated a vintage and much too young. But most of the chateaux present offered verticals, including the younger wines with 2006, 2003, a scattering of 2000 and even one 1989. It was an unparalleled learning opportunity.

It was also an excellent occasion to compare some more affordable Bordeaux with the great names. And some came across quite well. Chateau du Tertre, for example, has always been one of Steve’s favorites and it measured up quite well against its sister winery, Giscours, and many of the others offered at the tasting, even though it costs under $55. And we discovered a little known Graves, Gazin Rocquencourt from Pessac-Leognan, that we liked very much and found for under $40.

Finally, this tasting gave us the chance to meet some of the proprietors and wine makers from Bordeaux. We were surprised to find that the owner of Chateau Fonplegade in St. Emilion, where we had visited more than a decade ago, was an American, Denise Adams. She was happy to talk to people who had visited her winery and were able to taste how much her wine had improved since our visit there. She and her husband also own a winery in Napa called Adamus.

In all, despite the distractions and the crowds, Steve found this tasting to be a valuable and enjoyable experience. Besides the fantastic wines that we had the opportunity to taste, Lucie found the experience extremely unpleasant. The organizer, James Suckling, had picked the wrong venue for this supposedly prestigious wine tasting. We were packed in like sardines, unable to walk from one tasting table to the other. Also, with the bad set up of the tables, it was difficult to get a taste because there was room for no more than two people at each chateau’s cramped space for pouring wine. It took so much pleasure out of her tasting that she thinks that it was disrespectful to the patrons to hold a wine tasting that pricy in a place like that and then pack it to the maximum to get more money.

Powertasting.com is about going wine tasting, not about wine itself. So here are some recommendations that have nothing to do with wine at all. All the wineries mentioned in this post are great for the beautiful views you can have on a nice clear day, which in California is most of them. Some have wine we like, some don’t. But all of them are worth a visit just to look at the scenery.

Domaine Carneros, in the district of the same name, is an imitation French chateau, largely because it is owned by Taittinger, the French champagne house. You approach the chateau up an elegant stairway, and you can sit on the terrace where they offer you champagne and pinot noir. From there you can see a panoramic vista of the Napa side of the Carneros region.

Across the valley and up a fairly steep hill is Artesa, a monumental building carved into the hillside with a row of fountains to greet you as you enter. It’s also owned by a maker of European sparkling wine, Codorniu of Spain, but there’s no homage to the Old World here. What there is a grand view of Carneros, with Domaine Carneros off in the distance.

In Russian River, just south of Dry Creek, Rochioli has a patio just above their vineyards and those of many other growers way off to the left and right. They are best known for their pinot noirs, which you can sip contentedly watching the next harvest growing just below you.

Rutherford Hill is best known for their merlots, especially the reserve. It is located just off the Silverado Trail in (no surprise) Rutherford and it commands majestic views across that town’s vineyards. It has a large picnic area, which they  to use. But they give you several bottles of wine for your money.

Photo courtesy of Rutherford Hill’s web site, http://www.rutherfordhill.com/Picnic

In St. Helena there is Rombauer, also along the Silverado Trail. (Route 29, on the other side of the valley, is in a flatland and thus offers no great views.) Rombauer is an “old-school” Napa Valley winery, in that it is just a tasting room in a rather rustic cabin, not a grand temple as some have become. You can look across the valley from their gardens, which also have some picnic tables.

At the northern end of Dry Creek, you can visit Sbragia Family Vineyards. You can look all the way down the Dry Creek region from their capacious, shady porch. Ed Sbragia gained fame as the winemaker at Beringer until he opened his own winery. Sitting on his patio, you get the sense that this is exactly where he always wanted to be.

William Hill winery on Atlas Peak Road in Napa has a spectacular view of the valley. On specific dates in the summer, you can bring your picnic dinner, buy a bottle of their wine and enjoy the sunset comfortably seated on an Adirondack chair or at a table under a gazebo overlooking the hills of Napa Valley. The rest of the year, you still can sit there and enjoy the view while you’re tasting their wines.

Some wineries offer spectacular views and other wineries offer the view of their vineyard. One of those latter is Lucie’s favorite, Duckhorn Vineyards in St Helena. The building itself is a gorgeous country house with a porch all around, situated in the middle of their vineyards. A dream place for Lucie. One can never get tired of that beautiful view.