Wearily remembering Napa

It’s 7:30am at JFK airport. The crowd, for the most part, looks tired. People are clutching their Starbucks, iced or hot, and mindlessly look ahead. I just stare at this screen, hoping to tell all the stories of my trip.

Before I left for college, my family took a vacation to San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was 1991. I remember going through the Napa Valley wineries and being very frustrated about not being allowed to sample the wine. Seriously, no teenager is going to care about the fermentation process if he can’t sip the results. Rita chided me for being a snot, and I retorted that this was a family vacation, let’s do something that the kids want to do. (This is the vacation when I begged to walk around the Golden Gate Bridge and everyone balked. I had to wait until 2000 before I got to do that.) I remember that this scene between my mother and me happened at the Christian Brothers Winery. This tour was an unusually long one, with interesting information, from what I remember, but I was just pissed off at our countries alcohol laws.

Well, 15 years later, I got to head up into wine country and was legally able to drink. We made reservations for Greystone at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) for Thursday night. After the punch buggy gauntlet was dropped, Hilary got in a good number of slugs while I navigated, and 2 hours later we found our Chateau Hotel to check in. We had rooms across the hall from each other, and Hilary and I claimed the one room at the party lounge. She gleefully jumped from one bed to the other, as she does.

We all change into Bay Area finery – jeans and nice shirts, and head out to the restaurant. The sun was setting over CA-29 and the sky was pink, purple, cobalt and blackening. We pull into the parking lot, and Brigid asks me if I know what the CIA was prior. I looked and it had a distinctive religious look to it. “I don’t know, Bree, a monastery?” She responses, “Close. It’s the old Christian Brothers.” Vengeance is mine! Ha, ha, ha! After 15 years from my minor tantrum, I now can walk into the place and order me up a meal and some wine.

We marveled at the meal. We started with the chef’s selection for an appetizers – the highlights being the figs stopped with honey-sweetened goat cheese and a butternut squash soup. I faux pas-ed when I tried to get my demitasse of soup; it slipped from my hand and the rich buttery sweet warm liquid infused with nutmeg, coriander and cinnamon bubbled up out of its container as I dropped it sending the pumpkin colored liquid all over myself, my plate and my glass of Pinot Blanc. Our server quickly gave me a napkin to clean up, replaced the tray of soups and served each of us our on cup. Hilary pointed and laughed.

We did a wine flight with dinner and mine was called Pinot, Pinot, Pinot, comprised of a Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and a Pinot Noir from the Napa and Sonoma area. J winery was the source of the Pinot Gris that I went head over heals for. Luckily, I found it in the Castro Wine Shop later in the visit.

We ended our meal with a chocolate soufflé with Grand Marnier crème sauce. To die for, and so rich that the four of us could not finish it! We returned to our Chateau to strategize our winery tour after our spa visit to Calistoga. This was all in anticipation for our visit to French Laundry.