A Perfect Spring Day in Napa
Living in Marin now makes us one county closer to the wine country. Taking advantage of a beautiful spring day today, we decided to take the 30 minute ride up to Napa. We were on our way to Napa for lunch when we decided to make a quick stop at CornerStone Gardens. CornerStone is set amidst nine acres of garden installations created by the world's leading landscape architects. It’s definitely worth a quick stop if one finds a little time away from wine tastings, which I know, can be quite hard to do. There was a special event today, TOMATOMANIA !, which is apparently the world’s largest heirloom tomato seedling sale offering more than 200 varieties of seedlings for sale (see picture). There was definitely a lot of tomato talk there! I was really craving for a huge vegetable garden when I saw all those tomato seedlings. ;) Our hungry stomachs didn’t allow us to spend a lot of time at CornerStone and we headed out to Oxbow Public Market in Napa for lunch. Oxbow is right beside COPIA. Oxbow has a wonderful selection of food artisans and purveyors, and we wanted to have a “sampling-style” lunch. We started off with swordfish kebab from Kanaloa Seafood set atop a lightly dressed salad from Rotisario. The swordfish was tender and very flavorful. Our main dish was arepas from Pica Pica Maize Kitchen, Venezuelan cuisine with corn flour pockets filled with meats, plaintains, black beans and cheese. Yum! To round it off we had the best strawberry ice cream - Strawberry Je Ne Sais Quoi (strawberry with a splash of balsamic vinegar) from Three Twins Organic Ice Cream.
With the tummy well-satisfied, we were ready to go wine-tasting. We decided to keep to a small area in and surrounding the Stags Leap sub-appellation. We went first to Robert Sinskey Vineyards to buy Abraxas, a favorite white of ours. We next went to Plumpjack Winery because we heard they are now pouring wines from Cade, their new sister winery, partly owned by our handsome mayor of San Francisco – Gavin Newsom; then to Paraduxx, an offshoot of Duckhorn Winery and hence the ‘duxx’. Paraduxx has a well-landscaped outdoor area, and is worth a visit on a nice day if you’re tired of standing around the bar and just want to chill out and engage in quiet conversations. Our last stop, Darioush, really topped the day for us. Darioush is one of our favorite wineries now – every single wine on the $25 tasting flight was wonderful – Chardonnay, Pinor Noir, Merlot, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon. Every single wine was fabulous, how often does that happen? We only wished they were cheaper as we would have bought a few cases if they were! But we went home with a bottle each of Chardonnay and Darioush’s signature Shiraz, which is full bodied, spicy and well-rounded – a very delicious wine.
Beautiful landscaped gardens, a tasty lunch, great wines - it was definitely a perfect spring day. Molti contenti!
