Pops & Son 3rd Annual Wine Trip – Napa

Ehler's Estate - St. HelenaMy 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!

Wonderful Wine-Induced Thanksgiving & 30th Birthday

I got quite the (early) 30th birthday weekend over Thanksgiving weekend, whew! My family and Beth, especially, truly went out of their way to make my 3rd decade start off with a wonderful wine-soaked bang. We had a very special start to the weekend with Thanksgiving night at my sister's condo in Napa, where she provided a cozy and well-appreciated dinner aided by my mom and Beth. The next day my family and I went tasting around the Napa Valley, starting at Cartlidge & Browne, one of the best value producers in the world of wine. My family first learned about C&B when they owned Ehlers Estate in St. Helena. I grew up going to many a tasty picnic at that winery. They've since sold off that label and winery and are now are based in their large warehouse in American Canyon. We tasted a few wines there, where I liked their Sauv Blanc and Stratford label Cab's. Please use the links below to read my reviews log notes for the wines I mention in this post!

Great Wine 2.0 "New Release Only" Event!

Jason Moore, Modus OperandiI had the rather outstanding opportunity to go to my first Wine 2.0 event last Thursday, their "New Releases Only" wine-tasting at Varnish, a wine bar and art gallery in San Francisco. I've been to Varnish a lot over the years since it opened to grab a break from working at the Wednesday happy hour party Qoöl at 111 Minna Gallery around the corner. As a nice aside, it also doubled as a great way to spend the night of my 30th birthday. So, I grabbed my friend Alberto from Minna and we headed over to the party. Wine 2.0 is, essentially, a wine industry networking group that intends to push wine into the open source and social networking new world that is "Web 2.0." Really though, that's kind of a stuffy description for what is a really cool and vibrantly active group of young wine entrepreneurs and aficionados. I kind of think of them as the next generation of "Wine Brats," but taking a different sort of approach than that organization (though Wine Brats is still going strong!). Despite this younger crowd pushing this movement, I was happy to see a widely diverse group of 200+ patrons that at the event that were all over the age map.

Napa Valley Wine & Food Recommendations

Originally published at my personal MySpace Blog My wife, Beth, and I have made many different wine trips around NorCal and we've built up a string of places that we really enjoy. As various friends and co-workers learned this over the past few years, I've started writing some rather extensive emails of recommendations for places we like in different regions. So far, I've made a Napa Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea/Carmel Valley (my favorite AVA), Sonoma Valley, Russian River/Alexander/Dry Creek Valleys and a small one for Amador County (where I actually haven't spent much time). I thought that these would be great to post here and keep kinda updated. In honor of the home team, I'm going to post about Napa first. I have included links to each individual website, as well as the accompanying information we have on WineLog [WL]. Enjoy!

A new wine "Tool?"

Vino CaduceusIn one of the most surprising developments in the wine world since Ravenswood Winery infiltrated NASCAR, I recently found out that Maynard James Keenan of the hard alternative, industrial-tinged rock bands Tool and A Perfect Circle (and the new band, Puscifer) has started his own winery and vineyard [info courtesy of Rasputin Music's Infamous, Incredible Newsletter]. The endeavor has actually been going on for 6 years, meaning that Keenan is already producing wine from his own vineyards in the Phoenix, AZ area. Keenan has named his winery Caduceus Cellars, after the ancient Greek symbol of commerce (and somewhat inaccurately for medicine in North America). His estate vineyards are named Merkin Vineyards (no comment on that name, look it up for yourselves!). Read on for more!
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