Travels in Napa

The view from Artesa winery in Carneros

My trip to Napa Valley was not as wine oriented as I had imagined. Well, that is to say, it was not as studiously wine oriented as I might have imagined. There on best man duties for an old friend from Rome days, we met up with a bevy of our ex-pat companions who had made the journey from various points afar. From there it quickly galvanized into one of those truly memorable convivial symposiums four days on the trot. I've had mornings before where I awoke with my mouth tasting uncomfortably of whiskey; never before has it tasted so consistently of Cabernet Sauvignon.

On our first full day there we assembled on the edge of Napa town, about 25 in total from the out-of-towners to the wedding, onto a bus to head north up the valley and into the heart of the wine country. Organized by the groom's father, a local Napa resident, our first stop was an afternoon soiree (if there is such a thing) at the Mumm's winery.

In a quintessentially beautiful setting of a private patio space with the vineyards of the valley floor before us and the Mayacamas mountains beyond, we were offered to sample, liberally as we soon discovered, from one of their vintage Brut and a rose sparkler.

The scene at Mumm's

I was soon catching up amongst a circle of friends, many of whom I had barely seen over the past number of years. Before long I noticed a group of us had, without really intending to, propped ourselves up at the makeshift bar the gentleman was hosting behind. And if some of the parent's age folks in the crowd weren't going to help themselves to a third, or fourth tipple of champenois style at 2:30 in the afternoon, who were we to turn down our diligent duty to utilize the quota of bottles that had already been opened?

Back on the bus we departed the Silverado Trail and made our way in traffic down Highway 29 towards the Carneros region and our stop at Artesa winery. One of the groomsmen along for the ride wasn't a wine man, and so had apparently made a dash to the gas station 7-11 before our bus departed and emerged with a bottle of Crown Royal and Canada Dry ginger ale. As the lone Canadian in the contingent I found this sophmorically amusing (and that's an adjective of approbation in the early days of a symposium). The Canadian whisky and ginger duly passed about, including the parent's generation I'll add, we garrulously stepped off the bus at Artesa and took in our surroundings: A near 360 degree panorama of the Napa Valley and hills from a southwestern perspective (Behind us, the next valley unseen over the ridge would have been Sonoma).

Napa wine country; with the author at centre

The consensus amongst those of us who had lived in Italy was that it was immediately most reminiscent of Tuscany, though the topography arguably even more dramatic. Inside, the tasting room was organized, perhaps in a nod to an Italian influence at Artesa, into a pseudo Roman hall, complete with impluvium. We did comment amongst ourselves that all the open, undemarcated pools of flowing water seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen at a winery.

Sidling up to the bar with our man Diego hosting, I felt a bit more in my pensive tasting element: two whites, two reds. The first white was a native Spanish grape that I don't recall. Likely mirroring the way I generally feel about Spanish whites. I'm sure they're fine, but nowhere near the top of my list of 'must-try' wines.

The second white was a Carneros Chardonnay, something both I, and a number in our group, would typically be wary of. Diego gave me a resassuring smile, and mentioned that this was not only his favourite, but also the most expensive bottling we'd be trying.

The common complaint about California Chards, as with some Australians and burgundies, is that they're too buttery, too immersed in sub-standard oak aging. This chardonnay was both buttery and clean, something I'd never tasted out of California before. The taste up front was typical rich Chardonnay, but then it quickly cut away to a clean finish, almost like my beloved Riesling. Chardonnay lives to fight another day in the palette of my mind.

For the reds, I honed in, and without consulting the tasting line-up and likely attempting some sort of token effort that I pretend to be a wine journalist, offered to Diego, "Now I see you're situated in the southern end of the Valley, and with the prevailing tramontane winds I suspect Pinot Noir would be your primary grape here as opposed to Cabernet". He looked at me a bit like I was an idiot, and with an 'obviously' hint to his response, "Uh... yeah".

At that point my investigative brain checked out, and what was left chimed in "So I see you have wines to serve me, good sir".  One Pinot, one Cab, fittingly.

The Pinot was luxurious and supple, very lovely (representing my wine notes after about 9 tastings); the Cab however was extraordinary and delicious. Rich, mouthfilling, but no bitterness. A perfect melding of say Chilean and Medoc Cabernet styles. Admittedly I've not had much experience tasting Napa Cab's, so that blended comparison may come off as crass for the non-parvenu. To think, Carneros wasn't even one of the great heralded Cabernet Sauvignon terroir's of the Napa Valley.

That evening in our Arrested Development style Air B&B rented model home, in the lyrically titled Napa town of American Canyon, the Rome crew bantered over some supermarket Sauvignon Blanc (I wasn't in charge of that expedition). Later we dipped into a bottle each of the Artesa reds that folks had purchased. The Pinot and the Cab; luxurious and the rich, and we joked about our days and nights amongst the piazza's of Rome.