Beattys Overseas

Steph, Kristen & Whitney, Day 1 of wine tastingOur friend Kristen invited us a few weeks ago to join her at her parents' place in the Napa Valley for the weekend following our time in Gilroy.  We heartily accepted, looking for any way to extend our trip and the days in sunny California.  The house sat atop a hill in Calistoga, overlooking hundreds of vines, with a huge property that housed a pool, a tea garden, a large BBQ patio and huge fireplace facing large picture windows. 
The amazing houseKristen's friend Stephanie joined her, as they would be at a legal conference later in the week in San Francisco together.  We were all bowled over by the house and it's property, and wondered why we even want to leave this amazing place.  Yet, the wineries called to us, and we made the best of what was already a wonderful situation.

Our first visits on Saturday afternoon were tastings at Clos du Val and Miner Family wineries.  Sunday, we were joined by John's cousin John Love (who was in Sacramento for work and drove into the Napa valley to see us!) at Vincent Arroyo vineyards, then we forged on to August Briggs, then Salvestrin, and ended the day with a long and lazy tasting at Mumm for some bubbly.
Our group at Vincent Arroyo Winery  Frankly, after wine tasting all day, you really do go through palette fatigue!  The sparkling wines were pick-me-ups for our mouths, and we finished the night with dinner at Rutherford Grill.  Monday started with downtime for each of us, and we all managed to meet up at the pool around 11:30 when the temperature just hit 70.  Ahhhhh.  We had an appointment at Neal Family vineyards on Monday afternoon with the winemaker, Gove, who gave us a very thorough and personalized tour of the fermenting tanks, the barrel caves and the bottling stations of Mark Neal's booming business. 
At the Neal Family Vineyard fermenting roomI can say that I learned a ton more about the winemaking process than I already thought I knew, and Gove was an excellent teacher, answering my stupid questions and correcting my misunderstandings. We had an awesome dinner at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, a friendly and very chic little restaurant in downtown St. Helena.  The food was tremendous!!!  We definitely recommend Cindy's...

Tuesday morning we had an appointment for a private tasting at Spring Mountain Vineyard.  At 10am, none of us were really ready to start sipping wines, but after an hour-long tour of the gorgeous property (some of you may know it as the Falcon Crest house) with the super-dooper friendly and loquacious Brian.  Brian, a former sommelier and wine rep, now works for Spring Mountain doing marketing and sales, and was the best tour guide we could have asked for; he had us sipping really interesting wines at 11:30am, and explaining every little quirk and knack to wine tasting.  We all wished that we had our little "lesson" with Brian at the beginning of our weekend in Napa, since we learned so much about taste recognition and wine protocol with him. 

The perfect view of vineyards and the Silverado Trail from the patio of the houseOver the course of the weekend, we endlessly oohed and ahhed at hundreds of vineyard views, dozens of delicious wines, and the perfect daytime temperatures.  Our four days in the wine country were the perfect wrap up to our 5 months abroad...  In many ways, it was the classic "vacation from the vacation" that people always claim to need after a common holiday.  Our holiday was nearly half a year and in 15 countries, so why shouldn't we relax at the end of it in a gorgeous locale surrounded by good friends and fine wine?  Cheers to that.