Napa Valley Day 2
The morning of day 2 and we are on our way to Oakville and the Robert Mondavi Winery (more here). Robert was responsible for the major push to label wines by variety rather than region as it is done in France! It is a 15min drive from St Helena on the way to Napa. A very successful and professional outfit at Mondavi.
The signature tour included a tour of the vines, the winery, the bottling room and a seated tasting with some wine/food comparisons. One of the features of the winery is the combination of wine and art, attributed to Roberts second wife Margrit (Kellenberger). Robert Mondavi was the first major winery built in Napa Valley in the post-Prohibition era.
We had lunch at the well-known Gotts Roadside burger joint! Written up by the Wall Street Journal as one of the 5 reasons to love Napa, Gotts has a strong reputation with locals and visitors and foodies alike. Opened in 1949, it has very good traditional American food made with locally sourced and very fresh ingredients its extensive menu and list of California wines is truly worth the visit. Despite not accepting buses, the lines can be long so its best to visit off the peak eating times.
From there it was off to an Australian owned winery and the oldest continuously operating vineyard in the valley - Beringer Vineyards (more here). This is a very beautiful place to visit even if you are not there to sample the wines. We did the Taste of Beringer Tour at $40 each. This covered a guided tour of the winery (now for show purposes only) including the caves. We tasted their latest vintage of Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from the barrel and surprising to this author it was quite drinkable. We then went through to the old kitchen of the homestead and had a seated tasting of 2010 Chardonnay, 2007 Merlot and the 2007 Nightingale Botrytis Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc. Cleverly paired with an elegant food sample to demonstrate the wine without and then with food. Americans have a different take on food matching to the Australian food industry but a great experience!! The real star of the visit however was the grounds and the homestead itself. Built by Jacob Beringer, who in 1868 moved to the new world, from his home in Mainz, Germany through New York and then onto the Napa. He was drawn to the rocky hillside soil and fertile valley floor that were like vineyards back home in Germany.
The terroir in the Napa is fairly unique in the world. The valley is bordered by the Mayacamas Mountain Range on the west and north and the Vaca Mountains to the east. The soil in the valley is made up of sediments deposited the activity of San Pablo Bay while in the north there are large volumes of volcanic lava and ash. Humidity combined with fog and cool mornings climbing to high temperatures in the afternoon make for one of the best wine making regions in the world!
Stay tuned for more tomorrow....
