Shaking her head, the Twomey tasting room hostess peered at us over her small glasses. As she pulled up the wine glasses, she continued her lecture, "There is a bike path you could follow from Calistoga (leaves near the public works center) to Dunaweal." She poured us each a teeny pinch of wine. "The traffic is soooo heavy out there, and there is no sidewalk..."
Tsk Tsk. Shame on me.
As we tasted, I thought three things:
First: If I wanted to be scolded, I would have taken a trip to see my mom.
Second: This wine better be pretty damn good, but it isn't, and so...
Third: I will take her advice and recommend that, instead of following our walk (mapped out below) you simply follow the bike path straight from Calistoga to Sterling Vineyards and totally skip Twomey.
We were trying to enjoy Gail's birthday weekend by spending the days wine tasting in the Napa Valley. We do this most every year, we love to walk, the weather is almost always great, and so here we were at 11AM, about a mile into our six mile, four winery loop. Truth be told, we were headed for six wineries (one per mile seems reasonable) but we took our time enjoying three-fourths of them, and so only hit four by closing time.
Our first stop was Twomey, and if I were to do it over I would skip this one and hit up Cuvaison, Venge or Lava instead.
Next, we headed up the long, tree lined drive to Sterling, to ride the gondola up the "mountain" for a tasting. The wines were fair, and the view pretty, though truth be told, the hill was about as high as the hill in my neighborhood that we walk up every day. We bought the silver package which gave us additional tastings up on top, but we still had to pay extra for a food pairing to go with them. The foods were good and matched the wines, but at the price and all, we both agreed we'd rather return to St. Francis near Santa Rosa for their food and wine pairing meal.
After a relaxing time on the view terrace, we headed down and across the street to Clos Pegase. Some friends of our love their wines, and a winemaker friend recommended stopping to see the really unique labels and artwork. Well, the wine was good, the tasting overly pricey ($30 for four small tastes) and the owner sold the winery a couple months ago and took all the artwork with him. If you want a winery with some great art, and an pricey tasting, Peju just down the road past Rutherford, is a is a better bet.
So far we are having fun walking but the tastings are not impressive. But it is a sunny day, warm breezes are washing over us, and we are drinking wine, so life is not bad.
Our fourth, and last winery of the day was b Cellars. They specialize in Napa Valley blends. The tasting was more reasonable at $25 for four samples plus a six-food pairing. The wines were really good, the best of the day in fact, but it was kind of hard to stretch the small pour over two or three different food pairings. But that is my only complaint here: they need to be more generous on their pours. The foods were delicious, the outside deck seating area beautiful, the inside comfortable and cozy, and the service excellent. I liked how they told you specifically which fodds to pair with which blends.
After a nice hour or two at b Cellars, we finished off our walk as the sun set. We stopped at Cal Mart for some food, headed back to the Euro Spa (a small, boutique hotel right in Calistoga) and out to the hot tub and warm pool.
The following day, Super Bowl Sunday, we awoke to heavy rains, the first of the winter. After a cozy breakfast out around the fire, we headed out to visit another winery on our way home but got sidetracked and stopped at V. Sattui. It is located just south of St. Helena, before Zinfandel Lane, on the left.
We walked in to nice, Italian looking grounds complete with bell tower and covered portico surrounding old oaks and a great picnic area, and into a deli filled with hundreds of cheeses, meats, specialty foods and so on. The wine tasting room was in back, and it was huge.
Now it turns out that Super Bowl Sunday is a great day to taste. The few people there were clustered around one tasting bar, so we headed over to an empty one along the back side.
First off we got the deluxe tasting (six samples, you choose from the menu, for $15) and were comped Gail's tasting for her birthday.
Second, since the crowds were light, we got a lot of individual attention, which is code-speak for lots of samples of increasingly better wines. Once the wine hosts found out what we liked, they started bringing us samples from all over the tasting room. At one point we had a vertical Cabernet Sauvignon tasting, several different vineyards and years, eight samples of Cabs alone. Then on to the Zins! Syrahs!
We made quite a long tasting of it, and I was wishing it was not raining outside, so we could go sit in the picnic area with a sandwich and the samples.
After a few hours we decided to skip the other wineries, bought a couple bottles, and headed home.
Did the weekend turn out like we expected? No.
Was it disappointing? No.
Next year we have to decide to return to our favorites, or go off to discover more new places.