Category Archives: Wine Education
Napa Valley Mustard Festival — The Main Attraction is Free and Spectacular
The 16th annual Mustard Festival began in earnest on January 31 and will run through March 28th with various events. The idea behind the Mustard Festival is to promote tourism in the Napa Valley during the “quiet” time of the … Continue reading
First Time to Napa Valley: Must Do Activities
We often get emails from first-time travelers to the Napa Valley asking advice for where to go or what “must activities” to include in their trip. Here is our list of what we think first-time visitors to the Napa Valley … Continue reading
Mike Chelini, Winemaker at Stony Hill, One of Napa’s Old Guard
Mike Chelini began making wine at Stony Hill Vineyard in 1972 and has never looked back. Mike is one of Napa’s old guard, a member of the G.O.N.A.D.S.,* and a throwback to another time and era in the Napa Valley’s … Continue reading
What’s in a Name – Family Wineries of Napa Valley
We visited three Napa Valley family-owned wineries in succession recently and found them to be vastly different from one another in several ways. We visited William Hill Estate, Salvestrin Winery, and Hopper Creek Vineyard. Our excursion prompted us to ponder … Continue reading
Napa — Unsettling Problems
With redevelopment projects along the Napa River and the buzz created by the Oxbow Market, you would think that all is joy among Napa businesses, restaurants, and lodging establishments. Not so. The last few weeks have not brought good news … Continue reading
Napa Valley’s New Competition — Crushpad Vintners in Foster City
Could two small Vintners from Foster City and others like them be a possible challenge and take a piece of the pie from the Napa Valley wine market? Probably not, but with over 100 Crushpad clients making and selling as … Continue reading
Schramsberg – Napa Valley’s Sparkling Wine Icon
Schramsberg Vineyards is the last of the wineries on our sparkling wine trail to be reviewed. It is perhaps the most interesting and fascinating of the five wineries that we have visited and posted to our blog. Jacob Schram originally … Continue reading
Inglenook and Charbono Revisited
We recently celebrated the 40th wedding anniversary of friends with a dinner party. One of the guests, a wine collector, brought a 40-year-old bottle of Inglenook Charbono to celebrate the affair. The bottle of 1968 Inglenook Charbono was decanted and … Continue reading
A Look at the “Paris Block” Chardonnay
A few blog posts ago, we mentioned that nearly all the grapes that produced the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, the wine that won the “Judgment of Paris,” came from Sonoma County and not the Napa Valley. We found all this … Continue reading
“Napa Wine Country/Photography and Words,” and Yes, There really was a Charles Shaw Winery.
A few weeks ago we spent one night in the Boonville Hotel in Mendocino County visiting some of the new wineries in the Anderson Valley. We found something very special. No, it was not a winery but a book about … Continue reading
