Angele is an inviting restaurant perched overlooking the Napa River at the end of Main Street. We booked a 7 pm reservation for a Wednesday night in May. The restaurant and bar were very busy when we arrived. The restaurant with a full bar is stylish and looks and feels like a place where folks just like to hang out and have a casual but elegant experience.

We decided to have a cocktail, and the bar menu has some interesting and unique specialty drinks. One we just had to try was the Sage Margarita. It was deliciously refreshing and a great change of pace. What a difference a few sage leaves and good tequila can make in a Margarita.

No sooner did we have our drinks, than our server was pushing for our order. We did order but hinted to our server to slow things down. While still working on the Margarita, another server brought our wine. We had to ask him to wait to open the wine until our dinner arrived. Shortly after came Joe’s French onion soup. Joe sent the soup back to kitchen with instructions to hold off until our cocktail hour was over. We hate to be rushed and we definitely were at this point of our dinner.

As far as the food, we both agreed, quite excellent and scrumptious. Janelle had the roast chicken that came with garlic potatoes. Joe had the halibut with snap peas, and a frothy prosciutto sauce. Both dishes were beautifully presented. We capped the evening off by splitting a delectable apple tart with ice cream for dessert.

Angele has a very good wine list and one very weighted with Napa Valley wines. Corkage fee is $20. The atmosphere is very fun at Angele. The restaurant is alive with people having a wonderful time. Although the service was rushed at first, for the rest of the evening we felt very relaxed. Our check came to $138, not including tip.

The Good: Delicious food, excellent wine list, great atmosphere.
The Bad: Service rushed.

This was one of our favorite breakfast spots in the Napa Valley. Last week, the morning after our annual Bocce Ball bash, our group planned to meet for breakfast at Gordon’s in Yountville at 9 am. We were so disappointed to find that Gordon’s had closed. There is no other place like Gordon’s in this area of the Napa Valley.

We did an Internet search and found a couple of articles related to the closure. We read that the Leslie Judd, the owner of Judd Winery, has purchased Gordon’s and is set to reopen Gordon’s sometime soon. We hope that it stays the same as before, a wonderful country style place to dine and socialize. Besides his winery, Leslie Judd owns Dean & Deluca, the delectable deli in St. Helena, and he recently purchased the four Oakville Grocery stores. Apparently, the Oakville Grocery was having some financial issues. Judd says that he plans to keep Oakville Grocery the same, so it is a good assumption that he will do the same for Gordon’s.

We read that Gordon’s previous owner, among other factors, indicated that fewer visitors are driving past the main part of town. New businesses have surfaced in the central part of Yountville in the past couple of years. Tourists seem to concentrate in that area and not many opt to venture to the north end of Washington Street in Yountville.

The main exit in Yountville is Washington Street. You turn left and immediately drive through the very busy business area near the Vintage 1870 center. Once you pass that area and continue north, there is a definite lull in storefronts. You get the feeling that you need to turn back and nothing is ahead. We guess that is partly what made Gordon’s special. Not everyone new about the place, almost a hidden hideaway. We hope Gordon’s reopens soon and keeps the same flavor and atmosphere as before. Visitors just need to know it is there and they will come.

Last week we visited Daryl Sattui’s Castello di Amorosa, a 30 million dollar project that took 15 years to build. The castle is a combination of a winery, entertainment center, and visitor center. The Castle had its grand opening in early April of this year.

We booked a 2:30 tour and made our way north on Highway 29 past the town of St. Helena. About five miles past St. Helena, we spotted Peterson Drive on the left and then shortly a small sign that read Castello di Amorosa. You cannot see the castle from the Highway and the entrance is very easy to miss.

We drove up the entrance road that is beautifully lined with vineyards. Then suddenly, the immense and grandiose castle is before you. Our first impression was, are we really in the Napa Valley?

The castle is utterly amazing for many reasons. The tour is the best way to get a thorough view of this astonishing place. Reservations are required for a tour. The tour and regular tasting is $25. For an extra $10, one can taste the reserve wines. Our tour and tasting lasted about an hour and a half.

The tour got off to an unsettling start. Our tour guide promptly recited a set of important instructions that included: “Don’t lag, move quickly from one area to the next, those with cameras don’t stay back to take photos,” and on and on. It reminded us of our days as school teachers when we took students on field trips.

Our tour guide was right about one thing; there are so many stairways, hallways, and nooks and crannies that it would be easy to get lost in the castle. We did get the feeling we were rushed along and a few visitors asked the tour guide that the pace be slower.

The tour took us through all four floors of the castle. The most impressive room on the tour was the great dining hall. As you can see from our photo, the dining hall is lavish and extravagant. The hall has already hosted celebrities including Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Rudy Giuliani, and more are scheduled to come.

The most amazing aspect of the castle is the attention to detail in every building and room. The stonewalls are exact replicas of different eras of Tuscan architecture. All the light fixtures are handmade. There is even a dungeon complete with torture devices.

The winery is equipped with the latest and greatest state-of-the-art equipment. For example, the triple jacketed white wine fermenting stainless steel tanks rather than the standard double jacket variety. The barrel rooms and caves are stunning and seem to be everywhere on the lower level. The barrels are housed in large rooms, tiny rooms, and caves both big and small.

So what about the wine? Do the wines match the spectacular castle? We shared tastes of 12 different wines. We did not pay an extra $10 for the reserve tasting so we did not taste any of very high-end wines. We enjoyed all the wines but we did not think that they matched the rhetoric of our tour guide “where great winemaking is meshed with high tech and the best winemaking equipment.”

One wine we did really like was the very delicious Rosato d’Sangiovese. That was definitely for us the best of the tasting. We liked several other wines but we thought the wines were too expensive. I guess you might say, they need to find a way to recoup the 30 million.

This was a very fascinating experience and we were glad we took the tour. We both agreed we could do a lot of better things with 30 million dollars but, as the old saying goes, “to each his own.”

The Good: Spectacular Tuscan architecture and style. A sight to behold.
The Bad: Perhaps a bit too big and overpowering. The tour too rushed.

On our last visit to the Napa Valley, we discovered a great hiking spot in the Napa Valley. The area is Alston Park. It is park that the locals have been hiking for years. If you feel like you have had too much of the good life of the Napa Valley and a little exercise is in order, Alston Park is an excellent choice.

Within less than a mile of hiking, there are great views of the Napa Valley. The trails lead into beautiful meadows and woodland forests. There are side attractions of amazing homes and beautiful vineyards. If you are a trail runner, this is a fantastic place to do a morning run.

Alston Park is a Napa City Park. There are trail guides posted at the entrances but no hard copy to take with you. To get to the park, take a left at Trower Road from Highway 29 in Napa. Drive to the end of Trower to Dry Creek Road. There are two entrances on Dry Creek Road, about a mile apart. The south entrance is an area where dogs can run free. Take the north entrance where dogs must be on a leash. There are a few benches and tables scattered throughout the park and packing in a lunch is a great idea on a beautiful day.

The Good: Easy access and moderate hikes, great views of the Napa Valley
The Bad: No bathrooms or water on the trails. Bring in water and snacks.

At Hurley’s restaurant, we ordered a bottle of Laird Estate Pinot Grigio. It was a delightful wine. That piqued our interest and the very next day we visited the Laird Family Estate Winery. The winery is located very close to downtown Napa on Solano Avenue, the road that runs parallel to Highway 29.

Before our visit to the Laird Estate winery, we never heard the name Ken Laird. We thought we knew a lot about the Napa Valley but there is always something new to learn. Back in 1970 Ken Laird bought his first vineyard near Calistoga. Today, the Laird Family owns more Napa vineyard acres than anyone. The family business owns over 2000 acres scattered throughout the Napa Valley. They sell grapes to some of the biggest names in the Napa Valley wine industry. Just around the year 2000 Ken Laird started making his own wine in a new phenomenal wine making facility. Not only does he make his own wine here, but some 50 wineries also custom crush their wines here. In this amazingly vast facility, the Laird Family produces about 4500 cases of wine per year. As you can guess, only a small fraction of their vineyards are used to make their estate wines.

The winery is well hidden from the road but once you drive up the driveway, the pyramid style architecture is very dramatic. The tasting room is very nicely set up with a terrific view of the vineyards. There is an attractive picnic area outside the tasting for visitors to enjoy. As far as the wines, we enjoyed everyone one of the six wines we tasted. We tasted two wonderful Cabernet wines. Ordinarily, the tasting fee is $10 but our server waived the tasting fee. We were the only ones in the tasting room and we think he was just happy to have someone to talk to. He was very gracious and accommodating. He was also very informative about the workings of the winery and obviously very proud of the Laird Estate wines.

The Good: Friendly and cordial tasting room host. Very good wines.
The Bad: Could not afford the absolutely delicious 2001 Diamond Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon for $70

We dined at Pearl restaurant in downtown Napa a few weeks past and found it to be a refreshing change of pace from the usual wine country restaurants of the Napa Valley. Pearl is very casual and quaint. On any given night the place is packed with locals and a few smattering of wine country visitors who have heard about Pearl through the grapevine. Pearl has been at 1339 Pearl Street for 12 years, well before the town of Napa reformatted itself into a wine country hot spot. For the most part it has been a well-kept secret among Napa residents. Any restaurant that hangs around for this long a time has to be doing something right.

The food was very delicious. If you are a fan of oysters, Pearl has a nice starter menu of prepared oysters. We loved the flank steak soft tacos and Jose’s famous Chicken Verde. The wine list is adequate, not extensive by any means but priced fairly. Too often a wine country restaurant will have hefty markups on wine or an outlandish corkage fee. Corkage fee at Pearl is $12 and half of this is donated to the Napa Humane Society.

When our check came for our foursome dinner, we were shocked. Clearly, there must be a mistake we thought. Our meal came to $99. Granted, we did bring in our own wine but where else in wine country can you get such a good meal at this bargain price? The night before, we had spent about the same amount per person at a Yountville restaurant.

The Good: Excellent food at very reasonable prices.
The Bad: Not for the wine traveler who is interested in a fancy and elaborate dining experience.