My wife and I spent a long weekend in Napa a few days ago (and I'm not really much of a wine fan, but my wife and our friends? They could pass a Somme test tomorrow). A few recommendations:
Titus Vinyards: We did a tasting there-- excellent reds, and their Sauv Blanc isn't any slouch either as a "summer sippable". The tasting facility is very nice and the price-point is almost reasonable. Reservations required.
BASH2024: Wine tasting & food pairing competition at the Culinary Institute of America. This was a **LOT** of fun, and if you're remotely a foodie, I'd really recommend going next year. 25 stations with thee-person CIA-student teams. Each station had a 'bite' of food with an appropriate pairing-- and some of the wines (mostly Reds, but a few Whites and Rose's) were from very small vineyards. My wife and our friends found a couple that really enjoyed and are going to check out. It was a little on the spendy side, but we had a blast-- we'll definitely be going again in 2025. As a bonus, my buddy's wife won the raffle-- ~$700 worth of wines (6 bottles) that were poured that evening.... score!
Wine pairing lunch with
Moone-Tsai Wineries: (Mostly) reds in the French style, so my wife was in heaven. My wife and my buddy's wife bid on an auction at some wine event that I wasn't at, and this was the result-- a lunch/wine pairing event for six. They're more of a "custom crush" winery and they're a little on the spendy side. However, one of the other couple that was with us (friends of friends) is in the wine industry (Cakebread) and he was very impressed.
Mumm Napa: We had a tasting here as well that featured their "local" bubbles (i.e. not the ones you get at Costco. Very nice, but maybe a bit drier than my usual preference (which is more along the lines of
Shramsberg). To be fair, they're at a *far* more reasonable price point than the Shramsberg or Grand Dame that I'm fond of.
All in all, it was a great weekend. We stayed at
Dr. Wilkenson's, which is a fun spa/hot springs hotel in downtown Calistoga.
**ALL** of the wineries I listed are very much recommended-- there wasn't a bad one in the bunch.
R.