Right about now, we would be finalizing last minute plans
for our annual visit to the Bay Area. You see, these Bay Area trips usually
occurred in late October or early November for a couple of reasons. A previous
unnamed employer didn’t offer much vacation time, but both your birthday and
the following day were personal holidays. And since my birthday is in late
October, I normally scheduled my vacation adjacent to my birthday and tried
squeezing in my usual days off on either end so that a 1-week vacation actually
being at least 10 days long. And since the holidays don’t start until late
November, Ms. S also found it easier schedule vacations during the same time as
employees with the least amount of service often are at the bottom of the totem
pole when securing vacation time. And though we eventually established workplace
seniority and I found an employer with generous vacation benefits, we still
booked vacations during this time out of habit.
Then COVID settled into the landscape and traveling
overseas is now a distant memory…
Model Bakery
When we take the red-eye flight to SFO (which we usually
do to save a day), one of our first stops while in Napa Valley is breakfast at
Model Bakery. Model Bakery is run by the mother/daughter team of Karen Mitchell
and Sarah Mitchell Hansen and while most of their breads and pastries look
delicious, we usually order their muffin sandwiches to start the day as it
includes their famous English muffins. So good that Oprah (yes, that Oprah)
named the English muffins as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things in 2016 and 2017.
They are now so popular that unless you pre-order in advance, you’re limited to
just a dozen muffins. Fluffy and buttery, they make the perfect “bun” for eggs,
ham and pesto and the perfect start to a wine country morning!
Castello di
Amorosa
Created by the 4th generation vintner, Dario
Sattui of V. Sattui Winery, Castello di Amorosa is the 2nd winery of
the Sattui family with 8000 tons of bricks, roofing tiles and paving stones
imported from Europe. This 40-million-dollar castle is quite a sight to behold
and the wines aren’t 2nd fiddle and wine from both the V. Sattui
Winery and Castello di Amorosa are only sold at the winery. I’ve been
bamboozled (pun intended) by other wineries before purchasing wines that they
claim are only sold at the tasting room just to find them later at Cost Plus at
a lower price but these wines are only sold at their wineries and their off dry
Riesling is perfect with Hawaii’s Asian cuisine. And they do ship to the 50th
with just a $69 shipping fee for a case of wine. And for red-eye travelers from
the 50th, they open to the public from 9:30am which is 30 to 90
minutes earlier than most other wineries so you don’t have to twiddle your
thumbs waiting in some winerie’s parking lot after breakfast.
Oenotri
We first visited this restaurant located right in the
heart of Napa Town on the advice of an employee at a Bed & Breakfast inn
who stated that due to her Italian heritage, grew up on traditional Italian
dishes but said that Oenotri was as good as anything her mother or grandmother
created. But what piqued my interest was the house made salumi or cured meats. They create 29 different salumi and on any given day, they serve
at least 10 varieties as they employ a charcuterie chef who only makes these
cured creations.
And if the timing was right, we’d be in town during the 2
week period when the white Piedmont Alba truffle was in season like our first
visit when we sampled the funghi (mushroom) pizza topped with freshly
sliced white Alba truffles! Which didn’t make it any easier to finish my beef
tongue Milanese which basically was an Italian style beef tongue katsu.
It really made chicken and tonkatsu pale in comparison.
Tank Garage Winery
We first visited Tank Garage Winery on a whim as I never
heard of the winery but it seemed eclectic enough in an old gas station
complete with an actual vintage gas pump as part of the façade. And none of
their wines were labelled by grape varietal which is the norm in the Golden
State but rather with proprietary names like Skin Flick, Run Baby Run and
Somewhere Out On That Horizon. And they created wines with methods that aren’t
usually employed by most wineries like carbonic maceration where whole clusters
of grapes are placed in tanks filled with carbon dioxide which causes the
berries to start fermenting from the inside out eventually bursting and
releasing their juice or creating orange wines which are white grapes that are
left to ferment in constant contact with the skin so that these white wines
actually contain tannins usually only found in red wines and they develop a
darker color and slight oxidative character and is the perfect foil for our
local, saltier cuisine. They also blend unusual grape combinations not normally
found on the market but what I like the best about Tank Garage is that they
ship their wines to the 50th for just $21 a 6-pack a $1 for a case
of twelve. The current shipping rate for most wineries run from $60 to $120 per
6-pack so you’re paying an extra $10 to $20 per bottle!
Oxbow Public
Market
We usually make several stops to the Oxbow Public Market
during our stay in Napa Valley, sometimes for two dozen freshly shucked oysters
on the half shell at the Hog Island Oyster Co with a side of their Tricolore
Salad with the slightly bitter trio of endive, radicchio and arugula tossed
with a honey-lemon vinaigrette or on other occasions, a lunch at the Kitchen
Door for the Armenian Lahmajun flatbread with spiced ground lamb with dressed
salad greens and pomegranate seeds that are topped over the baked flatbread or
carpaccio topped with Vietnamese greens, chili peanuts, wasabi peas and
a lime aioli.
Of course, after filling our bellies, we needed to walk
off the excesses by making that short walk to the Napa Valley Distillery where
they create craft cocktails that are bottled for the perfect omiyage or
simply to sip once back at the Bed & Breakfast!
Backroom Wines
Also located in Downtown Napa, Backroom Wines refers to
wines usually reserved for select clients kept in the backroom. These are
usually wines with limited availability, so they are never placed out on the
floor for the public but kept just for the store’s best clientele. I’m not sure
if Backroom Wines has a special “backroom” but they do have an extensive
assortment of Napa Valley wines as well as a limited selection of European
wines. They also have a tasting bar in the back of the store and the tasting
fee is waived if you purchase $65 of more. I normally would ask for up and
coming wineries that haven’t appeared on any oenophile’s “radar” yet but also
purchase locally created vermouth and gin so we always leave with a couple of
bottles in tow.
Still a Nightmare
Though COVID-19 is still that nightmare that even appears
when you’re awake, there’s no reason you can’t reminisce about pre-COVID days.
And I know that at some point, we’ll return to the Bay Area and wine country
for our annual get-a-ways but until then, I’ll simple dream about those days…
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