Drunk

View from the top of Pride Mountain; Dad at left and Amy in the middle. Click on the image for a much larger version.

My sister put down her feet after last October's father and son romp through Napa Valley, and last week the three of us set out again and enjoyed a wonderful and ridiculously decadent tour of wine country. The trip was literally organized around a dinner at world acclaimed restaurant The French Laundry (after we secured reservations a couple of months ago), and that indulgent dozen-course dinner was basically a metaphor for our whole week.

In total we amassed 7 Michelin stars -- Laundry, La Toque, Bouchon, and Cyrus -- and many other corks, tours, and tastings at some of our favorite valley vineyards, including Schramsberg, V. Sattui, Joseph Phelps, Castello di Amorosa, Quintessa, Nickel & Nickel, and Pride Mountain. Amy, Dad, and I had a wonderful time, amazing wine, incredible food, saw and made friends, watched the sun set and rise, the mist roll in and evaporate, and many plates and glasses be filled and emptied. Here's hoping for next year!

Home to the oldest wine caves in Napa Valley, Schramberg's tour (their icon is the frog above) ends with a great tasting, below, of several of their sparklings. Another cave leads past new French oak barrels of Quintessa to a worker pressing the recent harvest. Far bottom, a Rutherford field lies below the morning fog after the harvest.

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Comments (3)

So... did French Laundry live up to it's legendary status?

Hey M -- Well, it would be easy to write 2000 words on this, but to be short and sweet... Yeah, it was incredible. The restaurant, service, and presentation is just unbelievable. The food and wine list are also great, but a few of the courses didn't hit for our 3-top, including the foie gras, which, in its presentation as a tourchon, spoke to my surprise at how traditionally French the Laundry was (I had thought it would a little more modern than it felt that night). (The wine list was incredibly pricey... retail x 5! in most cases my dad thought).

The only other courses that didn't really ring out had a lot to do with the deep richness of over half of the tasting menu (I think that Cyrus did a much better job of tempering the rich courses with lighter, brighter ones). Even though the portions are very small, by the time you get to the 8th course (a cheese course), you have to have a wooden leg to eat more than a few bites of a triple-cream.

But yeah, the shorter answer is that it definitely lived up to its reputation. The better statement would be that after you get to 1 Michelin stars, the quality difference between 1 to 3 is much much more murky territory and probably very very political.

Any chance I can sneak a peak at your itinerary, no matter how itinerant it may be?

We're hoping to take a little family trip of our own to Napa and I'm compiling the must-do-must-see-must-eat list :)

Prost!

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