Friday 5ive- Napa Valley Visit

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. There was no post last week because I was in Napa Valley for our biennial trip to wine country. We always have a great time there, with excellent food and wine. It was very hot there (like everywhere else in the country), so we spent a lot of time poolside.

1) The scenery in Napa is just beautiful, filled with mountains and vineyards and gorgeous flowers. 

Outside Clos du Val Winery

The pagoda at Chateau Montelena

The view of Opus One Winery's vineyards

2)  We had some amazing meals in Napa, including the pizza at Ciccio, which was a big hit with everyone. We always put that restaurant on our list when we are in Napa. 

At Stag's Leap Wine Cellars we partook in their Summer 2023 Cellarius Kitchen Experience, where Executive Chef Travis Westrope created a four course luncheon for us. I liked the West Coast Corn Dog, which was filled with shredded tiger prawn with a delicious plum sauce on top, and served with a plum and cucumber sunomono (a Japanese salad) on the side. 

3) The highlight of our trip is always the Del Dotto Barrels and Beasts Dinner. Their winery is so incredible, and this year we were once again able to go into their caves and taste wines directly from the barrel. The dinner was so elegant, with passed hors d'oerves (caviar on top of an everything seasoned sable with smoked sturgeon mousse, pork belly spiedinis, and lamb chops), hamachi tartare with fresh diced peaches and marcona almonds and the highlight of the meal, a Cape Cod Bay Scallop on top of the tastiest corn pudding. They had entertainment from three members of the San Francisco Opera and a DJ wrapped up the evening with a $20 song- "Sweet Caroline". It's always unforgettable (unless you drank too much of the wine-LOL).

4) On our last evening in Napa we visited Mustard's Grill, recommended to us by more than one person. Perusing the most extensive wine list we've ever seen at a restaurant, we found a Pinot Noir from a winery named LaRue. Of course we had to try it and it was wonderful. We even brought the empty bottle home.

5) When we returned home, we took a helicopter ride back to NYC from JFK airport from Blade. It was pretty cool, flying over the Statue of Liberty and it only took 10 minutes to get back to the city (when it would usually take nearly an hour in traffic). I wish they landed on the East side because it took me almost an hour to get from the West side to the East side in an Uber. But it was still pretty cool.

I hope you can stay cool in this heat. Until next time.

Friday 5ive - September 24, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly(ish) post about five things that caught my attention this week. We visited Napa last week, so this week's Friday 5ive is an all-Napa edition.

1) We had planned on taking a hot air balloon ride there, but the weather didn't cooperate for us. However, on our way to the airport to go back home, we saw this beautiful sight- balloons being blown up and some already in the air.

2)  If any of you are familiar with Thomas Keller's famous restaurant, The French Laundry, in Yountville, our hotel was nearby and we wandered through his huge garden where he grows produce for his three restaurants in town. It's beautfully laid out, we saw all kinds of lettuce, peppers, zucchini, pumpkins, and they even have chickens on site for the eggs.

3) We had a special lunch at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, where the chef paired a wonderful four course meal with lovely wines. The most beautifully presented dish was dessert- a Bakewell tart with figs and a homemade basil gelato. It was all delicious.

4) We visited Chateau Montelena, and if anyone has seen the movie Bottleshock with Alan Rickman, you'll recognize the stunning exterior of the chateau. Our taste guide Michael gave us an interesting history of the winery, and of course we bought wine to send home. 

5) The reason we made the trip was to attend a VIP dinner at Del Dotto Vineyards, and that was so spectacular. The building is beautiful, and the last time we were there, we were able to tour the caves and taste wine right from the barrel. The food was amazing,  and they had singers from the San Francisco Opera perform during dessert. It was a magical evening.

Looking into the wine caves

It was a fabulous trip and next week, I may share more with you. In the meantime, stay safe.

This post was shared on Weekend Cooking hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader. You can find more Weekend Cooking posts here.

Weekend Cooking- Napa Valley Trip- Part II- The Wineries

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Last week, I wrote about the food we had on our trip to Napa. This week, I cover the wineries.

The first one we visited was Frog's Leap Winery, where I took my favorite photo of the entire trip.

The view at Frog's Leap Winery

We took a tour of Frog's Leap, where we discovered that the founder and owner John Williams graduated from Cornell and interned at Taylor Winery, and opened Glenora Winery in the Finger Lakes region where we used to live, so that was pretty cool. Our tour guide Evan was knowledgable and friendly, and we enjoyed all of the wines we tasted there. I like white wine, so I was very happy here. My husband likes red better.

The vineyards

The grapes are collected in wheeled bins

They get dumped into this container

and they go up the conveyor 

Then we saw the huge barrels the wines are aged in.

The wine barrels

Our next winery was Sterling Vineyards, where we took a tram up the mountain for a self-guided tour.

The view from the tram

The views were stunning, and at Sterling you followed a path to different stations where you again tasted more wine. We liked the tour better at Frog's Leap as it was more interactive and informative.

One of my husband's friends and his wife met us at Del Dotto for a tour of their wine caves. Del Dotto looks like an Italian castle inside, and the caves were very cool. We had a VIP tour, and actually tasted wine directly from the casks where the wine was aging. You could order wine from the very barrel you tasted from; the wine would be delivered in a few months or even years, depending on how long that particular wine needed to age.

Del Dotto cave

Del Dotto was pretty spectacular, and our tour guide really knew his stuff, as did my husband's friends. They have been coming to Del Dotto for years, and have many bottles of their wine, so they gave us the scoop on what to buy. Our wine is scheduled to arrive soon, and we can't wait to invite our sons and their girlfriends over for a wine tasting party.

In front of Del Dotto

We visited a few more wineries, and after two days of that, we decided that next time we did this, we'd probably stick to just one or maybe two wineries per day and then a little sightseeing before dinner. One of our friends told us that after visiting wine country, we wouldn't want to drink wine for awhile and she was right. I needed a little break, but by the time our Del Dotto wine arrived, I'll be ready!

Weekend Cooking- A Napa Trip- Part 1- The Food

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

My husband and I made our first visit to Napa Valley wine country last month, and it was a wonderful time. On our first night, we walked from our hotel to the downtown area, stopping at a local bookstore Napa Bookmine first. (Where else would I go?)

Oenotri dessert

We asked the young woman working there for a restaurant suggestion, and she recommended an Italian restaurant, Oenotri, nearby. The place was lovely, with a bar tucked into the corner and wooden tables between the bar and the open kitchen. Scott had a Bistecca Alla Pizzaiola that he raved about, and I thoroughly enjoyed my pasta dish. My favorite though was the cannoli dessert with fig and pistachio- so tasty! It was our favorite dinner of the trip.

The next morning we looked for some breakfast before we started out on our winery tours, and a woman at the Oxbow Market told us about Model Bakery. They are famous for their homemade English muffins, which are a cross between an English muffin and a doughnut. We ordered their egg sandwich on the muffin and it was terrific. We went back again the next morning for pastries and muffins and everything there

was great.

The English muffins are in the center top

Model Bakery's cinnamon rolls

We had a lunch lined up at The Farmstead at Longmeadow Ranch. The Chef's Table was a special lunch for six people, a true farm-to-table meal. While we toured the farm, we saw a cook picking herbs from the garden for our lunch.

The company was fantastic, a younger couple celebrating her graduation from medical school and the other couple was our age, celebrating his birthday. We all had a blast and laughed and drank wine and talked for over two hours.

The food was wonderful too- a melon and tomato salad, grass-fed beef tenderloin and a strawberry and merlot sorbet over a financier.

Melon and Tomato Salad

Beef Tenderloin

Strawberry Merlot Sorbet over Fanancier

By the time dinner rolled around, we had had a lot of wine and food and so we decided to forego our dinner reservation at Cole's Chop House and we hailed an Uber to go eat at In-N-Out Burger. The Uber driver thought we were a little crazy, but we enjoyed our cheeseburger, fries and shared milkshake for dessert.

Our last evening in Napa we had reservations for Bottega, chef Michael Chiarello's upscale Southern Italian restaurant in Yountville. Maybe it was because we had just had too much wine or were too tired, but neither of us enjoyed Bottega.

The decor struck me as too industrial, and the service was rushed. (We were in and out in 45 minutes.) My husband had the meatball appetizer and one of his meatballs was nearly raw. He told the waiter, who took the meatball away and came back after conferring with the kitchen. He told us that the meatballs were meant to be served "medium rare" which is odd enough, but doesn't explain why two of the three were cooked and one wasn't. They did offer to take the item off the bill.

We both found our entrees to be lacking, and it didn't compare to our first evening's enjoyable Southern Italian meal at Oenotri. We skipped dessert and headed back to the hotel. I can't recommend Bottega.

We wanted a hearty breakfast on our last morning, so I found a diner- Jax White Mule Diner located in downtown Napa. We split an order of beignets, which were so sinfully delicious and my husband had the short rib hash, which was fantastic. I even watched the cook shredding the short rib to put in the dish. I highly recommend Jax White Mule Diner if you ever visit Napa.

Beignets

Short Rib Hash

Next week's post will cover the wineries we visited. Have any of you ever visited Napa or Sonoma?