Napa Wine Tasting

Wednesday, Sept 29 (I know...This is a little out of order!)

I got up early and did a bit of writing in the journal, while Ade slept.  Next, I took an early morning ‘scoot’ downtown to explore.  This place is a real treat to visit.  There is a river flowing through town with many buildings strategically located on it.  Many of the stores are small old buildings that have been renovated to give that old small town feel.  One of the buildings was the Firefighters Museum.  I, instantly took a shine to it. 

Inside this building were fire trucks that dated back to the 1920’s, as well as equipment of that era.  It is a miracle that four of these vehicles actually still work.  The ladder truck dating back to 1930 was enormous, complete with all the accessory equipment and an enormous power activated wood ladder!!  The curator was a retired ex-firefighter who was born and raised in the town.  Obviously he had many stories to tell me, since I was his only customer at that moment.  He actually gave me a Napa Valley fire department crest and hoped that I would send him one of our Wilson’s Landing Crests for his collection of several hundred that were laid out in a very organized book showing departments from around the world!!

My adventure downtown continued until after noon, then it was back to Ade and our camp spot.  She had a really good snooze and was ready for another great day. 

By 1:30 we were on the road to “wine tasting heaven”.  There are two roads that parallel each other, just north of town.  One these roads are many, many small to medium sized wineries.  Like in the Okanagan, most of these are family owned and managed.  They often have spend millions of dollars constructing a site where the buildings and landscapeing all blend together to produce a very memorable experience focused on some sort of theme. 

For example the Peju winery (thanks for the recommendation Steve) had gorgeous grounds and statuesque art in the entry area.  Then you entered buildings constructed to give you a European feeling for the experience.  It like many others was a perfect environment to experience the many wines you might want to taste.  However, tasting at Napa is not the “value” that we, in BC, get in the Okanagan.  It costs $15 to $20 for each session (about 6 or 7 different wines) and only a small part of this charge goes to the purchase of your bottles!!  Also, the cost of the wines started just above our wines, but quickly went to between $40 and $80 per bottle.

One bit of a disappointment was that we still had 7 bottles in reserve in Rita, and since it was so hot we declined purchasing any bottles for now.  We were told that the heat greatly reduces the quality of the wine so we must start drinking our own inventory a little more quickly, and then we can stock up on the American vintages!

After our little tour of a few hours, we were back to the campsite and Emmi-Lou Harris was our next treat that evening.  Again it was back to the Opera House for the 8:00 pm show.  Once more we had a wonderful time.  Her voice (at 60) is still perfect as her and her background group performed for more than 2 hours without a break.  It is hard to describe her music as she leans from country to folk throughout her performance.  Her voice is so pure that a number of songs were done solo, and she did one song without even using the microphone and song enhancers!

Once back at Rita for the night, we sat under the stars, enjoyed a drink and talked about how luck we had been to see these back to back shows at such a unique venue.  The SKYLINE PARK campsite that we are staying at