Wine Time

On Tuesday, I got home from a six-day vacation to Napa Valley. This was a little bit of a return trip for me and my husband -- we went to San Francisco eight years ago, spending one day at Yosemite and one day in Napa Valley, but with the bulk of our time in the city itself. This trip was focused on wine country, with us renting a guest house in the town of Napa and centering our explorations from there.

We went with two good friends we've been talking about traveling with for years. It finally happened -- we have the pictures to prove it (boy, do we), and we managed not to get too drunk on wine to forget it. But even though wines and Napa were the centerpiece, we did start out in San Francisco early in the morning, for a sort of "greatest hits," the city in a couple hours sort of tour.

We drove down to Fisherman's Wharf for a short walk around. We nibbled on sourdough bread and went to look at the sea lions at Pier 39 (not too crowded so early in the day). We marveled anew at the steepness of the San Francisco streets, and drove down the famously crooked and picturesque Lombard Street (in the day this time; previously, we'd done it at night).

We left the city via the Golden Gate Bridge, and our friends suggested that before we set out for Napa, we find "that place" that's supposed to offer a great view on the other side. The Marin Headlands, I remembered. This too was a spot we'd only visited at night on the previous trip. Well, just past sundown. And, well... not quite, as it turns out. There are a few lookout points in the area, and somehow when we'd been there years ago, we'd missed the most famous and picturesque one. That would be this:

We found it this time, and it was beautiful.

From there, it was on up to Napa Valley, via the southern end of Sonoma Valley. It was still on the early side a bit for reaching our house, so in Sonoma we made our first wine stop at a place called Scribe Winery. We'd go to many behemoth wineries over the next few days, but this place was a quieter and smaller spot that was really the perfect introduction to being on vacation. It was so relaxing, in fact, that I forgot to snap a single picture of it. It was a simple-looking house with south-of-the-border architecture and a big patio. The latter is where we sat in the sun, enjoying charcuterie and sampling our first wine of the trip.

After checking into our house, we decided to head back out for one more wine stop. This time, it was to one of the larger places, V. Sattui. They had a market where you were encouraged to buy various meats, cheeses, and breads to do your own picnic. We picked up some that we would stash back in the refrigerator at our house rather than eat there on the spot, but we did enjoy a wine tasting guided by "Big Ed." (Seriously. He introduced himself that way. And it was a fitting moniker.) This was our first sample of a particular sales technique we'd get at a few places during the trip: pretend you're doing something "wrong" by giving us a couple of extra and/or more exclusive samples. (It kind of works.)

This early in the trip, I was sticking more to styles of wine I previously knew I enjoyed, so I chased a couple of whites with some sweet dessert wines -- and ended up bringing back a bottle of "Madeira wine" (not actually from the Madeira islands) to sip on for months to come here at home. We finished up the night trying to find something along the lines of a burger place, but wound up at more of a fancy bistro. (And then restating our intentions to cook a couple of dinners while we were there, taking advantage of having a kitchen.)

It was a long day, but I felt energized all the way through until almost the very end. A great sign of good times to come.