Sunday morning came EARLY! Our shuttle picked us up at 5 A.M.!!!
Sunday's itinerary:
5:00 AM –
Napa Valley Balloons picks up Sarah/Derek at
The Meritage.
6:30 AM - Launch in hot air balloons!
8:00 AM - Breakfast & mimosas at
Domaine Chandon. Shuttle back to The Meritage.
9:30 AM –
Eclectic Tours picks up at The Meritage
10:30 AM – Tour of grounds & Tasting at
Kuleto Estate
12:30 PM – Vineyard Tour & Tasting at
Chase Cellars.
1:45 PM – Lunch at
Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen.
3:30 PM – Tasting at
Kelham Vineyards.
7:30 PM –
Black Tie Taxi picks us up at The Meritage.
8:45 PM – Dinner at
Auberge du Soleil.
Sunday morning came EARLY! We were up at 4 and picked up at 5. That's A.M. Then off to Domaine Chandon for some pastries and coffee. That's the moon, folks.
We lucked into a clear morning, then lucked into being on the first balloon that launched, Tequila. 5 were taking off with Napa Valley Balloons that morning. Once we were in the air for a while though we saw lots more!
If you vacation to Napa, you MUST see it from a hot air balloon. It's beautiful!
Our balloon got up to 2200 feet and traveled as fast as 25 mph. Apparently the air is in layers and each layer has its own speed and direction. Since we were first up, we were the trail blazers.
Another balloon, Grasshopper, caught up with us and we "bumped", which is apparently perfectly safe as long as nothing comes in contact with the baskets (and nothing did).
The balloon ride was breath-taking. With the views and the hour, it was relatively quiet on our balloon. The flame is used intermittenly, but when it's used, it gives off some radiant heat - I think both Derek and I got a slight sun burn on our scalps! It was pink, but not at all painful.
Grasshopper was the first to land and we followed. Soon the field ("Jake's") was full of balloons. We were taken back to Domaine Chandon for hot breakfast and mimosas.
After breakfast we purchased our in-flight photo. Well worth it, I think!
Then went back to the Meritage and even took a short nap before we "started" the day.
We used Eclectic Tours the second day. Our driver was not as personable as the driver we had on Saturday from Platypus. And collectively our group was a bit more sluggish on our second day of tastings.
We started at Kuleto Estate. It's in St. Helena (pretty far from our hotel), but even when we got to the entrance, we still had a 10 minute drive winding up the mountain to get to the tasting room. The terrain was much different than the rest of the valley we had seen!
Pat Kuleto bought the property in 1992. He blocked up some property that was 6 cattle farms and made 91 acres of it into a winery. He sold the winery business off, but still owns the property and apparently hosts some awesome parties.
Pat Kuleto has rich guy A.D.D. Go read about him. I'll stay right here.
Now that you know more, you can see more of his property. A recreation of the Amalfi coast? check. 5 boats that were designed by him to include no nails or screws and hand-crafted? check. Developing cavier on property? Nope - tried and gave up.
Here we learned why there were roses at the end of the rows of grapes. If there's a disease or bug, it will show in the roses first.
After walking the mountain top property, we tasted some amazingly delicious wine - with cheese! Seriously. I loved everything. I'm still considering joining their wine club! While we were finishing, others arrived for a tasting - we were the only ones on the property for over an hour! Nice, intimate, good views and good wine. I think everyone bought wine here. It was by far my favorite winery that we visited!
After Kuleto, we headed to Chase Cellars. Again, we were the only group there. The owner, Katie, showed us the vines and tasted with us. She was refreshing - admittedly a novice at the business (she owned the property, but had a wine maker on staff). Almost everyone in our group purchased from here - most of them also got the chocolate sauce. After the fact, we've been talking about how Katie needs to meet Mark, our driver from Saturday!
From there we headed to Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen. This place definitely lived up to the rave reviews I had heard about it.
It's the same owner as
Mustard's Grill. Next trip, we'll definitely go to Mustard's! We shared the Stuffed Piquillo Peppers, cumin braised beef & charred tomato salsa. YUMM. We had other appetizers, but we were so busy drinking that I don't recall what we had. Derek had the Adult Grilled Cheese. I don't recall exactly what it was, but it included rhubarb so when they said they only had 2 left and 3 people at our table had ordered it, he dug his heels in and insisted he have the one with rhubarb. I had the daily pasta, which was some sort of fancy mac & cheese with pancetta.
Cat was taking pics of food. This is Lane trying to get chest hair but "don't get the face." And me & Jill's reactions. Love these photos!!
After lunch we headed to Kelham. It was pretty busy! Kelham had EIGHT tastings. I was wined out, so I didn't even taste 3 of them.
Kelham gets points for its awesome outdoor venue, but those points disappear and even go in the red because they had NO RUNNING WATER for guests. Port-a-potty?!?! Ridiculous!
We found the owner's sons to be entertaining (read: douchy and provided lots of material for us to make fun of them).
Let's take this photo for example. Let's zoom in.
That's a skull belt buckle and a skull ring. Why all the skulls?!?! "It's a lifestyle choice." Yeah - that makes sense.
The dogs started barking mid-way through our tastings. Turns out some guests had jumped into their water feature (large pool). The sons said it was the second time in recent months, but most of the time people strip down before jumping in. I think the girls probably just wanted to use the bathroom.
Back to the hotel for another quick nap! Unfortunately, the nap didn't work out well for Lolly - she was still asleep when we were supposed to leave! So only 6 of us went to Auberge. #yolo
Auberge got bonus points for: (1) the views - so awesome, but I wish our reservation was earlier so we could enjoy it more in the daylight. And the views from the balloon were WAY better; and (2) Wine List on the iPad - incredible convenient to have a list of prices and descriptions. Plus you could click on "maybes" then get the waiter's or your spouse's input. I'm now a firm believer that any place with an extensive wine list needs an iPad wine list.
We started off dinner with some bread. Derek's first course was the California Asparagus Soup, Brioche Croûtons, Maine Rock Crab, Lemon Crème Fraîche. The bowl started off without the liquid in it. Derek's face was 100% WTF?!? I had the Corzetti Pasta, Wild Nettle Pesto, Fried Artichokes, Asparagus, Andante Musette. Very good, but being a lover of Asparagus Soup, I had to help Derek with his first course.
After the first course, we were served a "shot" of cold leek soup. Not to be confused with lake soup.
For our second course, Derek had Bacon Wrapped Veal, Wild Mushrooms, Sheep’s Milk Ricotta Ravioli, Ramps, Madeira. Nom, nom, nom. I had Prime Beef Pavé, Asparagus, Potato Croquette, Béarnaise. Derek won that round also.
For dessert, Derek ordered a Port and I had some sort of sweeter white dessert wine. Derek paired his port with Crisp Filo Wrapped Chocolate Dumplings, Tarragon Ice Cream, Arbequina Olive Oil. I had Trailside Strawberries, Griddled Cornbread, Fromage Blanc Mousse, Celery Leaf Agrumato. I think I won the round, but Derek thinks he did.
All in all, Auberge was AWESOME! Nonetheless, as far as "bang for your buck," it didn't deliver. Our dinner was $400!!! And we barely drank (1 glass of wine, 2 dessert wines, an espresso, and a charge for chilled flat water). When you include the cab rides to and from, it was closer to $500. All of our other dinners were under $200 including transportation and a bottle of wine. Dinner also took a full 3 hours. Leaving at 11:45 and getting back to the hotel at 12:15 after a busy, busy day of drinking = CRASH! Oh look - the moon again.
Our loot from Day 2:
That's Kuleto Estate 2009 Zinfandel, Kuleto Estate 2011 Moscato, and 2009 Chase Calistoga Cabernet Sauvignon.
The next morning, we had breakfast with the Arnolds again, then packed up and headed home. Our babies were excited to see us. We thought they would crash on the way home, but they must have been so happy to see us that they stayed awake for the ride. Grant asked "You ride a big airplane to go get mama & dada juice?" Yes, son.
