Michael Mondavi’s venture at the Oxbow Public Market has ended. The Folio Enoteca and Winery quietly pulled out of the Oxbow Market at the end of March. This has to be a major blow to the Oxbow Market and their merchants. No doubt the recession has made it tough on the Oxbow Market but perhaps a greater concern might be its location. The Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco owned by the same company is teeming with tourists and visitors on a daily basis.
Read the rest of this entry »

If new restaurants are any gauge of how the economy is doing, then it must be doing just fine in the town of Napa. Since January, there have been three new restaurants that have opened, one at the Oxbow Public Market, two in the downtown area. In the summer, three more restaurants are slated to open in the Riverfront Residences development. That feels like a lot of competition for restaurant owners, but one would think that investors have reason to believe these restaurants will make it as the economy recovers. Read the rest of this entry »

Trefethen 2008 Fallow
First, I receive a bizarre miniature bottle called Fallow from Trefethen Vineyards. No information about why the bottle was sent, just a very hilarious winemaking note describing the aroma and flavors of this empty 50ml wine bottle. What’s up with this I thought. I don’t get it. Then, last Friday, my UPS guy rings the door and has me sign for a small box that he says is wine. I know better, no box that light or small can contain wine. Wrong, here from Trefethen again, is a small fancy box containing four 50 ml. wine bottles. But this time, the bottles are filled with wine. Yeah! Two each of their Double T 2008 Chardonnay and their Double T 2007 Red Wine. Now, I get it. This is a new concept for sampling wine that makes sense. Wineries using these small bottles can send out many samples instead of just a few regular-size bottles to wine bloggers, restaurants, and others without busting their PR budget. Although I would rather get a full bottle, this is a wise option for a winery that wants to introduce its wines to a host of people. Ggrich Hills, Patz & Hall, and Chateau Montelena in the Napa Valley are also early adopters of this novel approach to wine samples. The company behind all this is TastingRoom.com and if you look at their website you can find out how they go about processing these miniature bottles of wine. Incidentally, I polished off the four bottles of wine that I was sent and have judged both the Chardonnay and the Red Wine to be of delicious quality, as are all the Trefethen wines I have tasted.
Read the rest of this entry »

This may not be as fancy as a video produced by the Napa Valley Vintner’s Association or the Napa Valley Destination Council, but our new video on travel tips to the Napa Valley is just what our readers have been asking for. We must get several emails each month with the same essential comment: “We are going to the Napa Valley for the first time and we don’t know where to begin.” We are always a little bit bewildered by this because our Napa Valley Web pages on WineCountryGetaways.com are all about simplifying a trip to the Napa Valley and helping visitors to decide which wineries to visit. We realize now that many folks don’t want to spend a lot of time searching around, so we decided to create this short but informative video. The video explains how to select wineries and also many of the “Do’s and Don’ts” of wine tasting Read the rest of this entry »