The one time we ate, drank, stomped on grapes in Napa (Part 1)
- Tim and Sarina
- Sep 27, 2017
- 3 min read
Be One With the Grape.
This one is for the eye and mouth palette adventurers.
We recently took an "engagement-moon" to the beautiful rolling green hills of Napa Valley. So what kind of fun did our palettes get into? It ended with 18 bottles of wine shipped and 4 bottles of oil...but i'll get to that.
I had done the Napa experience 6 years ago for a few days and boy oh boy, you’ll need a few months to run all the way up and down the valley. With that trip 6 years ago combined with the most recent one, we barely scratched the surface!
We met with Tim’s cousin Jeffrey, and his lovely Hungarian other half, Anita. We booked an amazing AirBNB that sat on the Napa River. It was quite amazing to wake up to the water each morning.
We started our first day off pretty late so we spent most if it creating our itinerary for the next day. We were able to hit 2 wineries on the first day. Lets get into the taste bud fun!
Day 1:
First stop: Artesa Vinyards. This winery had the grandest, most modern, entrance of ‘em all. Parking was a pain the arse, but the boys managed to get it done while Anita and I scoped it out. First off, you cant see the winery from the parking lot. Anita and I were immediately greeted with 3 sets of stairs we had to hike up. My first thought was "I hope they have wheelchair access because this is a hazard for not only the handicapped, but a hazard of chugging down some wine and trying to make it down this thing alive!" Out of breath, we made it to the top and mannnn what a view! It was well worth the hike thats for sure. From right to left you had views of the hundreds and hundreds of green luscious vines. You were surrounded with two large fountains and a cooling breeze. The architecture of the building itself was very sharp edged and modernized. The boys finally met up with us and we made our way into the tasting room
We did a tasting for $35 a piece (Oh Napa.. how you aren't priced like Valle de Guadalupe...). Their Chardonnay was the only thing worth mentioning in regards to the tasting. We weren't too impressed with their crop. I did manage to score some apple vinegar for some cooking! So my ratings would be:
SERVICE: B- (busy bees, didn't tell us much about what we were drinking)
VIEW: A+
WINES: C-
Second stop: Liana Estates! Liana was a smaller winery, and newer than most in the area. Parking was not an issue what so ever. The entrance was not a grand entrance, but more like walking into a large house; Simple little place.We were greeted by our tasting master Laura (I think....). Sweet as can be, gave us a short breakdown of Liana Estates. This winery prided itself on white wines and bubblies! They mentioned that many wineries were red wine focused and the owners wanted to differentiate themselves and cater to the white wine lovers. As a white wine lover, I was pretty stoked. Tim and I did the whites tasting and Jeffrey and Anita did the bubbly tasting.
As for the wines, unfortunately nothing was worth remembering. Everything seemed quite mediocre, nothing truly turned us off or on. Well... we did have a kickass and delicious cheese plate that had the most delicious goat cheese hearts i've ever tasted. And if anyone knows me, knows that I am a little too obsessed with cheese and that goat cheese definitely was one to remember!
Tasting done, 2 pounds of cheese later, we took a stroll around the estate hoping there was more to offer. We found ourselves some corn hole! The estate had an outside seating area equipped with bocce ball and corn hole. We played one round, couple against couple, and I hate to brag, but were pretty tough to beat ;) So, overall:
SERVICE: A+ (Had her full attention, knowledgeable, and just awesome)
VIEW: C
WINES: B (for bubbly... they weren't terrible just not memorable)
CHEESE: A FREAKING PLUS PLUS PLUS
Minus a few random stops and other adventures, that was a majority of our day. I wont even get into what happened when Anita introduced us to 'Palinka' the "three shot max" Hungarian liquor... Little insight: We had more than three... We went looking for a haunted house in our PJs...
Anywho! Look out for the next one on our Napa boondoggle! We've got a whole lot more fun to share! CHEERS!
SIGNING OFF,
Nana-Grape
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