San Mateo to Napa

There were a few more things in San Francisco we wanted to see before we headed to Napa, so we got out early this morning and drove to the Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately the de Young museum was closed, which was where Josh wanted to take me to visit the tower that overlooks the park and city. We did see some people doing tai chi in the park, though!

We drove by the Painted Ladies and took some photos. I thought it looked really neat to see the houses with the city in the background!

The drive to Napa was really short and we made it into the city before noon. We met our hosts, Evan and Janet, at their apartment and discussed our options for the day. We decided to visit one winery and go to lunch... and then visit more wineries!

Our first winery was Black Stallion, which was huge and really beautiful inside and outside. Evan and Janet used their Napa Neighbors discount which allows them and two guests to free tastings, which was great! There was a nice variety of wines and we got to taste a 2005, 2006 and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon; it was fun to taste the differences in the years.

We had told Evan and Janet that we were on a budget but they took us to Hurley's, a restaurant that is definitely out of our budget! Lucky for us, the wait for lunch was over 30 minutes so we went across the street to Pacific Blues. After lunch, we took Janet home to get ready for work and Evan took us back out to visit more wineries.

Evan used to work at St. Clement so our visit there was great! We had a (free) private tasting that started with a 2008 Chardonnay and then four reds: a 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon blend called Oroppas, and then three 2007 Cabernets, each from a different local vineyard. That was also neat to taste how the differences in location effect a grape!

Since Evan used to work there, we got treated very nicely at St. Clement. We hung out in the employee kitchen and got to sample more wines, and Evan also let us use his employee discount so Josh bought a bottle of 2006 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (even though we hadn't tried it).

For dinner, Evan cooked a beef curry and served a 1998 Gewürztraminer. I didn't like it but Josh was impressed! Dinner was fun and I enjoyed hanging out with Evan and Janet.

Josh and I shared the same high: we were very lucky to have that free private tasting of Cabernets! My low was feeling very out of place in Napa... I don't know anything about wines and felt silly at the tastings, and even at the restaurant! It is definitely an expensive place. Josh's low was the high price of tastings - thank goodness our hosts had connections, because otherwise we would've spent $70 total on those two tastings! Josh and I shared the same "ho" for the day... Evan and Janet frequently argued in front of us, which was bad enough, but to make it worse they used really awkward baby-talk voices. They would go back and forth for a while and then one of them would laugh, but they were definitely arguing and it was extremely awkward for Josh and I to be there.