Rain and Wine -- in that order...

Friday, April 02, 2010
Napa, California, United States
We awoke none too early to find the previous day's sun a distant memory; replaced by a steady mist. As it was, our need to cancel our Sequoia day worked in our favor, as originally we had planned to "cram" Napa into half a day. We could now take our time, which worked out much better. In addition, we were really interested in visiting the small winery Quixote, which is only open for private tours during the week. We called first thing and were able to secure a viewing late morning, which gave us something to build around.

As wineries are hardly the things of kids' fantasies, to soften the blow we stopped after breakfast and allowed Anna to choose a new Nintendo DSi game of her choosing . This went over very well, and after an arduous decisionmaking process, a selection was made and Anna was engrossed for the rest of day...even into this week, truth be told. With Anna content, we visited the Folie a Deux winery, picked up picnic fixings, and arrived at Quixote around 1100. This winery is quite the anomaly, and off the tourist radar. It was started by Carl Doumani, the man who owns the huge Stags Leap vineyards. He evidently has more money than humanly necessary, and decided to build a boutique winery with a "signature" building, simply because he could. The story has him visiting many architects and such looking for inspiration as to what kind of building to commission. He was meeting with the U.S. Capitol Architect (a position which evidently does exist outside the world of Dan Brown's "Lost Symbol"), and saw a calendar on the wall of his office. That calendar has a picture of the Hundertwasserhaus building in Vienna, Austria. Most people have seen a picture of the building, which is a large apartment block, donned in bright colors, irregular lines, and trees growing from within and on top of the structure . It was designed by the Austrian Friedrichsreich Hundertwasser (makes sense, huh), who evidently is extremely eccentric. Well, the two men became friends and Hundertwasser agreed to design the winery. It took more than 10 years to build, given the strict and rather extreme requirements levied by Hundertwasser, and it is his only building outside of Europe. You can see from the pictures, it truly is quite unique. We were met by the property manager, a very pleasant Irish woman, who conducted a tasting for us and discussed the building's history, etc. It was extremely interesting, and the wine was outstanding. They produce relatively few bottles, and it is only available at the winery or at a restaurant owned by Boudani's daughter.

Over the rest of the day, we visited four more wineries and drove the entire length of the valley. In truth, the area of Napa is very compact -- which surprised me. Weekends are legendarily crowded but as it was Good Friday and raining, we were often alone at the wineries, which was nice. Before we left Virginia, a friend of ours who is a real wine nut, loaned us an industrial-strength wine carrier -- basically, a metal box on wheels, capable of holding nine bottles of wine, and which can be checked as luggage and withstand the wrath of airline baggage handlers. By early afternoon, we'd filled the carrier -- and emptied our wallet -- so we took time to "recharge" before supper. The sun was out by early evening, and we had a nice -- if not loud -- dinner at a local place recommended at one of the wineries.

Comments

2025-02-12

Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank