Napa 3 - With Automation

As often happens when we travel, Dave skipped breakfast. I did not, and was rewarded with some sort of delightful breakfast egg custard which I hope they have again tomorrow. The rains had paused so we took a walk around the grounds and across the path to Freemark Abbey – the grounds are very pretty and we enjoyed the walk.

Our first appointment was at Trefethen and included a short walk in their “zoo” vineyard – a small block with lots of different varietals. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and engaging and clearly enjoyed doing what he was doing. Although he was from Kansas, he also had New Zealand accent when he chose. His information ranged all over, from the history of the winery to grape growing in the Valley to information about the various wines. During the tasting someone asked him about the “best” wine, and he answered that it was like zebras and giraffes – which is best? I’m stealing that. We enjoyed the tasting, although in general the wines were not quite what we were looking for, just not to our palate.

We had a little time to kill so we drove back to St Helena to walk along their main street, which we’ve driven through a lot and always thought it looked interesting. It was interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the public toilets WITH AUTOMATION. I’ll do my best to describe it but if you can get to St Helena you should definitely stop and go, if you get my meaning. So first you walk down an alley to a parking lot and there is a kind of lean-to looking building with buttons, and you push the button and a door slides open. Inside is another button flashing green that says “push to lock”, which after you do the door slides closed and a voice announces that the door is locked and you have 10 minutes. Such pressure! The toilet has a sign that it will flush automatically when you a) wash your hands or b) unlock the door. Also this whole time jaunty jazzy muzak is playing. The sink is in a recess in the wall, with automatic places for soap, water, and air drying. The air dryer is so loud that I had to yell and leap backwards when it came on. I was loathe to leave but I’d done all I needed to, so I pushed the button and the door slid open. What an experience!We did a little window shopping and did not spend $3.25 on a single small chocolate truffle, then hopped in the car. On the way we got stopped by the Napa Wine Train. We’d thought about doing a lunch aboard the Napa Wine Train – it sounds like a fun afternoon – until we found out that the lunches start at over $300 per person and go up (and up) from there. We were pleased to see, as the train passed, that it was mostly empty. Good grief!

Our next stop was Black Stallion, and when our pourer found out we were from Oregon and knew something about wine he put together a custom tasting of 9 wines for us, and he chose well because we bought 5 of them. There was a flight of 4 cabs – no lyft or uber, he told us. They also had what they called an education vineyard, short rows of different varietals, which was fun to go and taste grapes from – we’re just at the end of harvest. Unlike Trefethen and our next stop, Regusci, they have a small estate vineyard but buy most of their grapes for the 30 wines they make.

We again had a little time to kill before our next stop (as a tasting room employee I love reservations; as a consumer not so much) but we decided just to go and if they couldn’t serve us right away we’d just hang out. It turned out they could. It’s an interesting pre-prohibition winery whose original owners got caught bootlegging, and the current owners bought it from the bank and turned it into a dairy farm. A few years before the judgement of Paris they’d decided to try growing grapes, so they were well situated when the wine industry in Napa took off. The wine was interesting, especially a cab sauv aged in so much American oak that it tasted like coconuts and cherry cola. We both liked their Merlot. On the way out we walked through their beautiful vegetable garden and stopped at their farm wagon and picked up a little produce – a few walnuts, a persimmon, and some peppers.

We had a break back at our hotel before dinner. Our room (Winery House room 1) really is lovely; it’s a corner room with double doors out to a small balcony, and the two comfy chairs and sunshine coming in through the windows makes it especially nice. I have to admit there are times while we’re out that all I want to do is go back to the hotel and put on my leisure pants and hang out.

Dinner was at Don Giovanni’s Bistro in Napa; it’s an old standby for locals and well worth a visit. It’s classic Americanized Italian food (west coast style) and tasty, but what’s really amazing is watching the waitstaff hustle. They really have it down to a science; water and bread appear almost instantly; plates appear and disappear, and although everybody is moving very fast they all seem to flow past each other. Each table seems to have one senior waiter keeping an eye on things, and everything else is a group effort. They were full the entire time we were there, but our waiter said it was actually kind of a slow night. We skipped dessert but the coffee was delicious.