{"id":1702,"date":"2020-11-30T18:21:02","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T18:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2020-11-30T18:21:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T18:21:02","slug":"frogs-leap-winery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1702","title":{"rendered":"Frog\u2019s Leap Winery"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are some wineries in Napa Valley that are intended to awe their visitors.\u00a0 They may have long histories, or architecture designed to replicate castles and temples, or they\u2019re highly modern glass palaces.\u00a0 Frog\u2019s Leap Winery (https:\/\/www.frogsleap.com\/<\/a>) has the history, having been established in 1980.\u00a0 It has the grapes, much of which they sell to other winemakers.\u00a0 What it lacks is awesomeness.\u00a0 It was designed and built to make visitors feel like they\u2019re going to visit their country grandma, albeit a grandma with money and good taste.<\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of Wine Travel Eats.<\/em><\/p>\n

The winery building itself still looks like a barn, a very big one.\u00a0 It\u2019s painted the shade of red that seems to be reserved for barns. \u00a0You can take a tour and still see all the equipment and the barrels, but we think you\u2019ll be drawn back to the visiting area.\u00a0 Of course, that\u2019s where they serve the wine.<\/p>\n

While Frog\u2019s Leap makes a broad selection of red wines, it seems to us that they\u2019re best known for their white wines. Maybe that\u2019s because their Chardonnay is so widely available in wine shops around the country.\u00a0 Taking nothing away from the Chard, we\u2019re impressed that they still make a Chenin Blanc, which used to be much more prominent in Napa Valley.<\/p>\n

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These days of pandemic-induced changes, all of Frog Leap\u2019s tastings are seated affairs, by appointment only, out on the lawn.\u00a0 In better times, both in the past and just ahead, tastings are also seated, in a parlor where you perch yourself on a settee.\u00a0 Now, settee<\/em> is a word your grandma may have used and it\u2019s that sense of old-style hominess that is for us the premier attraction of this winery.\u00a0 You feel like much more than a customer; you\u2019re a guest.<\/p>\n

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This feeling is reinforced at Christmas-time.\u00a0 There\u2019s always a beautifully decorated tree erected in the parlor.\u00a0 It puts you in a holiday mood as soon as you walk in the door.\u00a0 They\u2019re not going to offer you egg nog; you\u2019re limited to wine.\u00a0 But there is a sense that you ought to leave some milk and cookies behind when you leave.<\/p>\n

Now don\u2019t get us wrong.\u00a0 The wines are modern: crisp whites and robust reds.\u00a0 Unlike many Napa Valley wineries, including many that are quite nearby, Frog\u2019s Leap still making wines at a price point that the average person can afford on a regular basis.\u00a0 Nothing among their recent releases costs an amount that requires three digits and that\u2019s quite okay with us.<\/p>\n

Oh, and about the name.\u00a0 We always thought it was a play on Stag\u2019s Leap and that may indeed be the case.\u00a0 But according to the people at the winery, back in the \u201870s, the location was a frog farm.\u00a0 A frog farm?\u00a0 Now, John Williams, founder of the winery, was working at Stag\u2019s Leap when he bought the property.\u00a0 So believe whichever story you prefer.<\/p>\n

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There are some wineries in Napa Valley that are intended to awe their visitors.\u00a0 They may have long histories, or architecture designed to replicate castles and temples, or they\u2019re highly modern glass palaces.\u00a0 Frog\u2019s Leap Winery (https:\/\/www.frogsleap.com\/) has the history, having been established in 1980.\u00a0 It has the grapes, much of which they sell to … Continue reading Frog\u2019s Leap Winery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1706,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/1706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}