Alpha Omega Winery is a new winery, with its first vintage in 2006. The winery occupies the facilities that once were Quail Ridge Winery and then Esquisse Vineyards. It is located just off Highway 29 on Mee Lane in Rutherford.

There are big plans for Alpha Omega. First, there is construction going on throughout the winery that includes plans for a beautifully remodeled tasting room. The tasting room will have picture windows where visitors can view the vineyards and the barrel room. But the most important plan is for the wines. The two owners, Robin Baggett and Eric Sklar, have a goal of making premium Cabernet Sauvignon from their estate vineyards in the Napa Valley. They do make a Chardonnay and a Rose, but the emphasis is to make the finest Cabernet Sauvignon possible.

Even though construction abounds at the moment, the scenery is quite beautiful here. Outside the tasting room, there is a large deck with picnic tables that overlook a pretty pond with a spewing fountain. It is a nice spot for a picnic lunch, although not exactly quiet. The construction is a nuisance that will eventually go away, but then there is the traffic from Highway 29.

In the tasting room the service is first class. The wine glasses are the best and the host is well schooled in serving the wines. The wines were all delicious but on the expensive side. The two Cabernets were $52 and $56 a bottle. In all, we tasted four wines for $10. Overall, our experience was a little too formal. We like a casual happy-go-lucky experience. We got the feeling they were trying too hard to impress.

The Good: Picnic area and good tasting wines.
The Bad: Construction going on, need to loosen up the tasting.

Brannan’s Grill has been a tourist’s favorite spot and Calistoga fixture since 1998. The corner restaurant on Lincoln Avenue continues to attract the tourist trade, especially on weekends, where the bar is jammed and reservations can be tight.

We visited Brannan’s Grill on a Monday night. You can count on Brannan’s to be open everyday for lunch and dinner. The first thing that catches the eye as you enter is the bar. The bar itself is a gleaming, beautiful mahogany structure made in Germany in 1880. The lighting is perfect making the bar atmosphere very inviting. The bar menu has some interesting cocktail specialties and a couple of wine flights that are reasonably priced and interesting to try.

We ate at Brannan’s several years ago and thought our meal was just so so. This time around we were much more delighted with our dinners. Janelle had the roasted chicken and Joe had the grilled rib eye steak. The chimichurri sauce on the rib eye was a wonderful sauce that complemented the steak. We rated our dinner a 4.5 on our Five Point rating scale.

Our only disappointment was the wine list. It is quite extensive but there are not enough choices in the $30 to $40 range. We did find a bargain selection, and a great match especially for the steak with the chmichurri sauce, in a delicious Sebastopol Vineyards Three Blocks Syrah for $32. The corkage fee is $15 and waived if you buy a second bottle, even a half bottle, making for a better than average restaurant corkage policy. Our dinner bill came to $108 without tip, we did not have dessert.

Monday night is not one of the busiest nights in Calistoga yet Brannan’s was a busy spot that night. We were not rushed and we had a slow and relaxing dinner. Our overall experience was fun and enjoyable.

The Good: Terrific atmosphere, wonderful bar, very good food.
The Bad: Good wine list but need more choices in the $30 to $40 range.

Diamond Oaks Vineyards has been around since 1982, not making wine but selling grapes to Napa wineries. It was not until 2001 that Diamond Oaks produced its first vintage of wine under the Diamond Oaks label. In 2003, the Diamond Oaks winery moved into its present location on Oakville Grade. It is a beautiful facility, formally the home of the La Famiglia winery owned by Robert Mondavi.

Diamond Oaks Vineyards is a very inviting place offering a few features that a visitor is not likely to find on the Napa Valley floor. The winery is located about two miles from Highway 29 up Oakville Grade. Here, visitors will find a terrific view of the valley floor. Because the winery is off the beaten path, fewer folks are likely to find this winery and the tasting room is not so busy. The grove of oak woodland trees in the picnic area, plus the distance from Highway 29, offers peace and solitude that is hard to match at most tasting rooms. The shaded picnic area is complete with Bocce Ball courts.

Dinesh Maniar, a long-time San Franciscan who slowly accumulated some of the best vineyards in the area, owns the winery. The Diamond Oaks vineyards total 550 acres in four wine growing regions. The tasting room is beautiful with a large open area and views of the valley below. The tasting fee is $7 for four wines. The first thing that caught our attention was the price of the wines. Overall, for the quality, the wines are priced quite reasonably. The two Chardonnay wines are delicious, and at $16, the Carneros Chardonnay is an excellent value. It was so good that we were forced to have a glass of this Chardonnay with our picnic lunch. The Pinot Noir at $19 is another good wine at a great price.

The Good: Peaceful spot, picnic area, reasonably priced wines and beautiful tasting room.
The Bad: $7 tasting fee not applied to the purchase of wine.

The Black Stallion Winery is the newest winery in the Napa Valley as of August 1, 2007. After seeing the full-page ad announcing the opening in the wine section of the San Francisco Chronicle, we decided to take a drive and visit the Black Stallion Winery. The winery is located at the south end of the Silverado Trail just a short distance past the Soda Canyon Store. The winery is a very visible stone structure that is difficult to miss. The name of the winery and the beautiful sculpture of the black stallion at the front of the winery commemorate where the historic equestrian center, the Silverado Horseman’s Center, once stood.

The visitor center is impressive, with a very stylish tasting island the main attraction. The tasting fee is $10 for a taste of four wines. The winery sources grapes from growers in the Valley but has plans to develop estate vineyards. We visited on a Monday and the tasting room was very busy. The tasting bar is vast and can easily accommodate a good crowd. Our host was very friendly but still learning the ropes of this newly-opened winery. A few of our questions stumped her, but she enthusiastically sought out answers from her coworkers. As far as the wines, we thought they were all good, but nothing distinctive enough to excite us at this point. This is a new winery so we anticipate the best is yet to come. We heard through the grapevine that the winery plans to concentrate on ultra premium wines.

We were quite surprised when our host told us that the winery’s production is 3200 cases of wine per year. From the sheer size of the winery facility, some 24,000 square feet, we would have guessed the winery case production to be many times that amount. The facility is quite impressive and elegant.

There are a couple of interesting rooms to take a look at. One is the wine clubroom, where members can sit, sip, and relax. The room looks a little more like a hotel lobby and not very exciting. The other interesting room is a very inviting dining room that has views of the tasting room and the barrel room. Visitors for special events can reserve this room. The winery has a catering service that will prepare a meal.

The Good: The spectacular sculpture of the black stallion in the front of the winery, elegant visitor center.
The Bad: A $10 tasting fee, not applied to the purchase of wine.

Hendry Wines – Albariño and Harvest Tours

We just tried an Albariño wine made by Hendry winery. There are just a very few California wineries that make this wine varietal. Albariño is a Spanish white wine, grown mainly in the Rias Biaxas DO (Denominations of Origin) in Spain. This area in Spain is in the region of Galicia and located just above Portugal next to the Atlantic Ocean. The area is a huge fishing area and the Spaniards love this wine with a variety of light seafood dishes. George Hendry’s Albariño is wonderful and very unique among California white wines. George made very few cases, so hurry if you are interested in tasting some of his Albariño. The wine is not exactly cheap at $19 per bottle. We have been buying Spanish Albariños for $12 to $16 that are very good.

On another note, George Hendry is scheduling his harvest tours. We have taken the tour three years in a row. His tours are the best, bar none. The tours take place from September 7th through September 24. Total time for tour and tasting is about 2.5 hours. Contact the winery for the schedule and more information.

Hall Winery and Frank O. Gehry Team Up

The famous architect Frank Gehry has designed an amazing structure for Craig and Kathryn Hall to be built at the Hall Winery location on Highway 29, just south of St. Helena. Frank Gehry is famous for his very modern and far out designs that create instant controversy and criticism. We will be traveling to Spain in September and we have on our itinerary a visit to his highly acclaimed work, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. From the photos of the Hall Winery we have seen in the newspaper, this winery is going to be a stunner. It is sure to create a stir. You may want to check our previous review of the Hall Winery.

Sterling Winery – Summer Film Event

Sterling Winery is hosting the fifth annual outdoor summer screen series to benefit Stars & Vines Fund. The Sterling Silver Screen Series will feature classic titles in a variety of genres from the Universal archives. The series started on July 14 and will run through September. Ticket sales are $10 for adults and $5 for children (16 and under). BBQ dinners will also be available for $10, along with other movie snacks. More information is available at Sterling Vineyards, or by calling (877)-737-3788.

The big boys are on a buying spree. This week conglomerates have bought Napa Valley wineries William Hill Estate, Duckhorn Vineyards, and the biggest shocker of all, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar.

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar, not to be confused with Stags’ Leap Winery (owned by Fosters Wine Estates) was sold to St. Michelle Wine Estates of Washington State and Marchese Piero Antinori of Italy. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar recently celebrated the 30-year anniversary of the “Judgment of Paris,” in which Stag’s Leap’s 1973 Cabernet was selected as the top Cabernet in a blind tasting of California Cabs and French Bordeaux wines. Warren Winiarski, who has been the winemaker and owner of Stag’s Leap Wine cellars, is a legend in his own right and certainly will go down in history as one of Napa Valley’s wine greats.

E.G. Gallo seems to be gobbling up wineries everywhere in California. A few years back we were surprised when they purchased the historic and wonderful Louis Martini winery. Now they have added another big Napa Valley name, the William Hill Estate winery.

Duckhorn Vineyards has been looking for a buyer and finally found one in GI Partners. We checked the GI Partners Website and found they own a diverse range of companies and, as far as we could gather, none related to the wine industry. Duckhorn also owns Paraduxx in the Napa Valley, and Golden Eye in Mendocino’s Anderson Valley and these wineries are part of the deal.

All three sellers state that they found the perfect match in a buyer, one that will hold true to the philosophy and integrity of their winery. Even though in the future these wineries may look the same and produce great wines, it will be different visiting them. Part of the aura of the Napa Valley is the family wineries’ pioneering spirit and passion for winemaking. That will be missing.