Trip Video:
Trip Story: scroll to the bottom
Had a great trip to Napa Valley. First got to see Joshua at San Francisco. Then headed up Sunday to stay at new place called Rancho Caymus. Great Hotel: Definitely would stay again. Great location, value, people, free bfast etc..firepits..great rooms
Had dinner at Auberge w/Chelle Monday night. Service very good, food good.. worth $700? Probably not!
Monday we hit the wineries and then each had massages at Napa Valley Health Spa. Then Tuesday Tuesday Keith and Alejandra Ellen came up and tasted with us all day and into the night! Great dinner at Bistro Jeanty with them.
Rented a Cascade convertible. Have to say it was pretty awesome / would rent one again: better and more room/comfy than the Mustang we usually rent.
Also had mud bath / massage couples experience again at Golden Haven: Pretty good: reasonable too: 2 hours for $180 each.
Chelle found a new park to run at which is on the other side of Silverado Trail: Pretty cool.
Wineries we went to and ordered wine from:
We of course went to Dakota shy, Frank Family Vineyards.
Elizabeth Spencer winery was pretty decent we ended up just buying some Cabernets. We bought six of them plus a bottle of their Pinot Noir Rose. It's going to be shipped summer, special overnight, it should be here next week. (We got it) Didn't join the wine club, met Tracy: We loved her and she can talk! She also is the Gardner there and gave Chelle a cucumber that apparently you must eat with skin and all!
Freemark Abby awesome as usual: we picked up three bottles of the Cabernet Franc and kept them with us. The next shipment comes October, we changed the address to Vermont, and we dealt with Mitch.
Porter: Got four bottles of the Family Dweller blend, which is 70% Cabernet, 30% Petite Verdot. SO GOOD!! Love this winery: Just so good and reasonable cost. Kate was awesome, and agreed that Petite Verdot is excellent. She likes it on its own as well. We also got two of the estate, 2015 Cabernets. So those six bottles, in addition to the typical wine club membership will be shipped to Sarasota right before Thanksgiving, because they don't have a license to ship to Vermont.
Hourglass with Marie. Great time / amazing wine : They are back!! Marie is 36 years old. Her boyfriend is going to be 50. Next time we are in town we will hook up with them for a drink: We tried to do it this time but couldn’t make it happen. Hook up for a drink at some point soon. And her Cell phone in her signature lineis the phone number. Great conversation. Cool girl, from Cleveland originally. Lived here nine years. Love to hook up with her and her boyfriend. Neither of them have been married. No kids. We Got to go on the new truck/trailer/tractor thing they have “Their new toy” and she drove us around the. Winery. But great wine, and I told her to listen to 36D, send it to Tony the wine maker, and Jeff, the owner, who is there as well as the 36 wine used to be called 36 24 36
STAGLIN
Spoke to Frederick. Nice place: Wine pretty pricey : Maybe go back sometime but not on top of list.
SEQUIO GROVE : Great stop as always.
CARDINALE: Had Jake do our tasting: HE WAIVED TASTING FEE (very nice : $150 times 4!): Very cool and we will come back. They’re wine is just amazing and you can’t beat the views. AND WE BOUGHT THREE BOTTLES AND HAVE W/US:
CELANI: 6 BOTTLES SENT TO US IN VERMONT IN OCTOBER/FALL. We met Olivia who is owner’s daughter: Sweetheart. Keith and Alejandra coulnd’t believe how good it was. Always wanna come back here. Didn’t get to see Wendy as she was outta town at a family function.
BV: Always like this place. It’s more mainstream than we usually go to but they had a “Tapestry” ; which is a cab blend, but mostly cab, 2015. It's unbelievable and it was $39 a bottle and we got 6 shipped and two bottles of the clone number six, which was 175 a bottle. Phenomenal wine
Went to Palmaaz: (Call after we went:) I spoke to Palmaaz. And Jenny is going to have eight bottles. That combines the September shipment and one coming up where I manually order five bottles and all of these sent to Morrill Street and they'll be right around labor day so that way it will come on time and I will be able to basically drive it to Vermont and the next shipment will be November and then at that time. I can customize it but we had a long conversation and they just can't shift to Vermont yet. We also went and became club member at Dr. Palmaz and we have to e-mail Eddie back and let him know exactly what we want, but we're committed to 14 bottles a year and also we're going to get knives and we can four free tastings and we can e-mail Eddie and set anyone up for a tasting for free. We got the $200 tasting credited and we bought Grastons and it's a blend. It's got some malbec in it, 10%, $115 a bottle. Three of those. It's unbelievable. And also, we got a bottle each of the 2014 and 2015 cab, which is about 90% cab. They're total high technology. They have a family dinner every Friday that is open to. members. They have three events with Paella and Eddie's been there three years. He's originally from Napa. Mexican, reminded us a lot of Joshua. And that's it. We're now wine members there, but we have to let them know we don't want any of their whites
We went to Vadear on the last day. Jen was our host: a little quiet but nice. We did this before we could leave and barely caught our flight. But, what a nice surprise. Grounds are beautiful. It reminded me a little bit of Patland. They specialize in Cabernet Franc, but sometimes they don't have enough to actually have a vintage. But, we did buy four bottles of the 2015 and four bottles of the 2016 and they were phenomenal. She's ship them at the end of September and apparently when you're a club member, which we are, you buy 12 bottles a year, there's $20, flat-rate shipping no matter when. So, we bought four bottles each of that and they were only about $85 a bottle, I have to verify. We also bought two bottles each of the Black Label, which is actually about 30% Syrah, but it was awesome. Then we also bought two bottles of their Cabernet at about 60/40 Cabernet to Cabernet Franc. They've got some cool looking caves. Definitely a place we want to go back and visit. And everything we tasted was incredible. I mean wow! We would definitely bring people back to this place.
We ended up running late and we literally made the flight by only a few minutes. Had our Gotts Roadsideon the way. The Ahi Tuna Burger is just ridiculously good.
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