Thanksgiving in Napa and Sonoma

Is it too late for a post about Thanksgiving? Yes, probably. But that won't keep me from doing it anyway. I think you should see a little bit of one of the most picturesque areas of the country, Napa and Sonoma during one of the most picturesque times of the year---fall. You know, for as much time as we've spent in various wine countries, we've never been there in the fall. I guess we went to Temecula in October for my birthday, but that's hardly fall in Southern California.

In the past, we've spent Thanksgiving in Colorado with Anson's family. This year, we got up at the crack of dawn and drove to San Francisco where we picked up my parents at the airport, and then headed up to Napa.

We rented a Victorian-era house in the middle of downtown Napa, and it ended up serving as a great home base as we traveled around Napa and Sonoma for the week. From it, we could walk to the grocery store, Oenotri (our favorite meal from last summer), and a new favorite restaurant, Norman Rose Tavern, as well as the Oxbow Public Market and everything in between. We went to Norman Rose for dinner on our first night, and Anson had a buffalo burger with chocolate BBQ sauce. Yep, this is Napa, and even the burgers are gourmet.

What really captivated me on this visit to wine country was the glorious colors we saw at every turn. I found myself gasping and pointing around almost every corner and was able to flex my landscape photography skills a little throughout the trip.

Our first stop was Pedroncelli Winery in Sonoma, a favorite of my parents from years back. We ran into John Pedroncelli in the parking lot and my parents chatted him up for a bit. That's the fun part of visiting wineries--meeting the people behind the bottles.

From there we went to Raymond Burr Vineyards (yes, that Raymond Burr) which had a very humble tasting room in a trailer on the property. The cool thing was it was decorated with shelves holding all of his acting awards. The very welcoming tasting room attendant invited us to take down any awards that we wanted to photograph ourselves with. Now that's hospitality!

We moved on to Ferrari Carano, which, hands down, has the most beautiful grounds of any winery in Sonoma. I had a hard time really conveying the beauty with these photos, as it was rainy and overcast, but you can imagine what a blue sky would do for this scene. They had some really amazing wines too, not just the Chardonnay that everyone knows.

We were really looking forward to visiting Chateau Montelena in Napa. Anson and I watch the movie Bottle Shock all the time, yet until this year we hadn't made it to the winery. If you are not familiar with the history, Chateau Montelena won the Judgement of Paris in 1976 for it's Chardonnay, and, along with Stag's Leap and other California wineries, brought California wines serious attention and respect on a world wide scale.

Their grounds are equally amazing, but with an totally different Old World feel. The tasting room, however, was completely welcoming and the employees were extremely friendly and knowledgeable. We stayed for a long time, tasting and learning about all the wines.  

We had to stop for more landscape photo ops at Sterling Vineyards.

We didn't visit the tasting room at Sterling, which required a $25 tram ride and included a souvenir glass, but we did get some great photos from the parking lot.

The B.F.A in me loved Clos Pegase Winery. They have a museum-quality collection of art that is available for guests to browse through. It really stands out among wineries for it's art collection alone. We got a shot of Anson, my dad and I contemplating some art.

The collection begins with the post-modern winery itself and skips across time from recent sculpture by Robert Morris to Henry Moore's abstractions and ancient Greek-influenced busts.

The sun finally peeked out at the end of day two, and it was no coincidence it happened as soon as we got to Benessere Winery. You've read about Benessere on this blog before. Anson and I have been fans of this place for several years and always make it a stop when we get to Napa.

Not only are the grounds as picturesque as any winery in your dreams should be, but the wines are fabulous, modeled after Italian styles. We always like that the tasting room is small and the employees take time to talk to you about the wine. We got to meet the assistant winemaker on this visit, who let us sample from a very new barrel of 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon. It was so interesting to see what the young, green wine tastes like, and compare that to the finished product we were drinking.

The sky turned properly dramatic as we left the winery.

We had to get a shot of my parents at the gate. That's where we found them, passed out on the rock wall.

A beautiful succulent at Chateau St. Jean and gourds greeting us at Kendall-Jackson, just before the rain picked up again. 

My parents' favorite experience of the whole trip was visiting Domaine Carneros, not once, but twice. It was worth going twice too. It's not the typical belly-up-to-the-bar tasting room experience. You take a seat inside the château or on the wrap-around patio and one of the very professional and hospitable staff greets you with a caddy of wine and tells you everything there is to know about their wines. It's wonderful. If you could only go to one place in all of Napa, this should be it. It's really a first class place.  

You can also order a cheese plate to enjoy while you take in the 180° views. If you don't want a flight of wine, they'll be happy to pour you a full glass of your favorite.

Domaine Carneros is known mostly for their sparkling wines (they are owned by Taittinger), but Anson and I were more impressed by their non-sparkling pinot noirs.

Just one of the many vistas to take in from the patio at Domaine Carneros.

Sigh...look at these trees across from the Oxbow Market. As always, we can't wait to go back.