tuesday catch up...winery vs. wine cellars and tanisha

tuesday morning took us to the top of howell mountain to ladera (the wine we drank on christmas eve). the setting was breathtaking and we were the only 2 people on the tour. we circled the outside of the 19th century winery, which was built into a hill and surrounded on 3 sides by the mountain. she then cut straight to the chase and took us to the cave for the tasting. joined another club (our wine fridges are going be to overflowing) and headed back down the mountain.

lunch was mediocre again...hurley's. took too long and wasn't great. don't do it.

we spent the first part of the afternoon at stag's leap wine cellars. back in the day, we joined this wine club because i was obsessed with the petite syrah. we got to the tasting room for our tasting (thank goodness it was free - otherwise we would have spent $110 on the library and estate wines) and kevin made a comment about no petite syrah.

enter epiphany 1 - stags leap wine cellars doesn't make petite syrah anymore....their neighbor, the stags leap winery, does. oops. i felt like such a poseur. from what we could tell, they actually made the petite syrah when we joined...oh well. apparently there's very little petite syrah in the valley and slwc couldn't guarantee the quantity or quality, plus they had already outsourced most of the production anyway. turns out we actually like the slwc wines better. consider yourselves enlightened.

our crappy rental car was without a functioning tail light. we had suspected this on the drive up (with the crazy hyper blinker noise whenever we tried to turn right), and confirmed it when a biker dude pulled up to us at a stop sign to let us know. that was slightly crazy (and no lee, kevin has yet to beat up any hippies or biker dudes). the last thing we needed was an excuse to be pulled over in wine country...

the closest avis was a mere 12 miles away in vallejo...what they failed to mention was the 12 miles would be in bumper to bumper traffic at the blazing average speed of 7.3 mph. we finally made it down there and realized tanisha's avis was in an area that rivaled our neighborhood in sw dc when we moved there 3 years ago (i.e. not so gentrified). tanisha asked if we wanted to refill the tank. thankfully, kevin was too far away to strangle her....as calmly as i could muster, i informed her that we weren't going to pay for that since avis (tanisha's or otherwise) should have provided us with a fully functional automobile. i think she decided it wasn't worth the fight and took us to our new ride, a hyundai sonata with xm that smells like stale cigarette smoke.

did i mention vallejo is south of napa and our hotel was northeast of napa near the russian river valley? an hour and a half later, we made it back to the hotel. oof.

we had dinner back over in napa at the wine spectator greystone restaurant at the culinary institute of america. it was awesome....easily top 10 meals ever. i started with a flight of sparkling wines and kevin had a martini with his new fave gin and vermouth -- something about 209, but i'll have to get back to you with the details. we did a sampler for appetizers and all of them were fabulous, very top chef. entrees were also good, and kevin ended with a cheese plate and a flight of ports and sherries, which he loved. i tried the molten chocolate cake and the waiter brought me a port (which i typically don't like) which went amazingly well with the chocolate.

we, of course, shut down the restaurant, but had a great time. greystone had fabulous people watching. i had a couple that was literally making out in the corner....we ended up in the ladies' at the same time and i had a hard time keeping a straight face. she was one of those "bless her heart" kinda chicks. sort of sad and past her prime, wearing some sort of sundress that was completely out of place (i realize it is california, but it's pretty cold).

on the other hand, kevin had a perfect view of a couple who came in after us, ordered a single bottle of rose wine, drank part of it and hustled out after their entrees. kevin couldn't fathom why you would go to the trouble of getting reservations at this place, come in, and not savor the experience. i, however, got a little queasy at the rose. one of my more memorable wine experiences was the eve of spring break freshman year. shay and i dined at one of lex vegas' finer eating establishments--the only one that accepted a student id from freshmen who wanted to drink. several carafes of rose wine (seriously what were we thinking) and some beef and broccoli later, we stumbled back to the dorms as i smoked my first and last cigarettes of my life. suffice it to say i didn't feel so hot that night or the next day as we drove 7 hours to the ATL. oof again.

that's all i've got for tuesday...is anyone reading this? give us some comment love...kevin keeps asking if we have comments and i've got nothing for him.