My father and I started a new annual tradition in 2005, the year that I started at
Genentech. While not an obsessive like myself,
Pops is a wine-guy (kind of hard not to be while living in
Napa). We decided back in '05 that we should start taking a wine-tasting trip every year that I get the week off between Christmas and New Years. The first year we stayed in Glen Ellen and hit much of the Southern region of
Sonoma Valley. Last year we stayed in
Healdsburg and took care of the Northern regions.
This year we decided to make it a little cheaper and just stay at the house and go to the many places in the
Napa Valley that we hadn't hit yet. Indeed, we stayed very low-profile on Thursday, just taking a taxi downtown and hitting some of the many tasting rooms that have or are about to open up in the city of Napa. The Napa downtown has (finally) come into its own again over the last 3-4 years, somewhat coinciding with the completion of the
Napa Valley Opera House restoration. There are almost no empty storefronts any longer and there is actually some building going on and further restoration work happening in various places. The other part of the resurgence has been the proliferation of tasting rooms. The
Napa Valley Register published a list of 17 tasting rooms downtown (15 are currently open already) earlier this year in August (thanks Na!) and we used that list to plan out our day. We heard later that there are supposed to be up to 10 additional tasting rooms that are to open downtown in 2008!
Day 3 of our wine trilogy was my last day with Pops on this, our 4th Wine Trip together. I wrote about the first day in Napa, here and the second, more freestyle day in Sonoma, over here.
Today we were focused on the whole reason we included Sonoma on this particular trip and a reason for which I had quite a bit of excitement...a semi-trade, private reserve tasting at longtime Sonoma Valley stalwart, Chateau St. Jean.
My family from my grandparents down to my sister and I have been making our way over to our neighboring Valley for decades to picnic and tool around the beautiful grounds. I have to admit however, that despite having many of their more mass-produced wines, I couldn't remember ever tasting any of their Reserves or winery-only limited run wines. I was about to cross those off my list! 
OK, so I wasn't off gift shopping for some flowers to take to the Pope, I admit it. His continent was involved, however. A few weeks back, my sister and my mom headed off into the skies towards a three week trip in London and Paris. Freed from familial ties, my Dad and I decided that it was time for another Pops & Son Wine Trip, this time in the Summer. Previous wine trips taken during my week off from the 
Most of my readers know that I have a fond place in my heart for the wines from 
Continuing in the vein of 