Ahhhh what a difference a day makes. And this day saw us visit 4 wineries. We were lucky that the jack hammering stopped by midnight so we got a decent amount of sleep. We walked to town to the farmer's market, a great way to start your day. There were wonderful vendors selling lots of local produce, breads and food products. The "coolest" one was the "Worm Endings Unlimited". She's been doing markets for four years and finally in the last couple of years people are catching on. Note pictures. For breakfast I had one pluot (apricot/plum); many sweet green, purple and really dark purple grapes; a mouthful of Norm's bacon and egg slider, hot black tea (must say that in the US), an almond biscotti, half a salty pretzel and a sample or two of Brazian pesto bread and Italian pesto flat bread -- not bad and it was only 9:30! (My tummy felt fine too). Now we decided to check out Napa, a rather classy but not too busy California town. Can you believe it that we immediately found a postcard/stamp store and right next door an antique shop? What fun! We headed back to our Inn (see photo; you may notice it's more like a 1930s auto court, although renovated) and headed up the Silverado Trail on th east side of the Napa Valley looking for wineries. There are hundreds -- the hardest part is trying to decide which ones to stop at. Being the driver, I picked some of the classiest ones. We started with the Black Stallion. Probably not the best way to begin because the wine was so good, everything else might pale in comparison but we took the chance.
The descriptions of wines we tried are amazing, you don't know whether to nod seriously or break out laughing. There are "hints of dusty cocoa" aromas of creosote and most red wines have blackberry, strawberry or cherry notes. Maybe the writers had more sophisticated tastebuds than ours. Norm did most of the tasting, while Mary the driver had some little swallows along the way. One winery stood out for the bits of chocolate served at the end of several red wines. Mmmm. The drive back down the valley was on Highway 29, connecting all the main towns, and we must have hit rush hour, ie 5 p.m. when most tasting rooms close. It was slow going most of the way back to Napa through St. Helena and Rutherford, even though the last 10 or 12 miles are on a four-lane divided highway. Sunday we leave winy Napa for brunch in Sausalito with Susan Chung, a friend from TC days, her husband Robert Bennett and their daughter Ling. They've been living south of San Francisco since the 1990s. Ling now is nine years old. Pix promised.