10 year anniversary trip - Day 2

Saturday was our day to sleep in. For the rest of the crew, it was their early day; but we are the early birds.

Saturday's itinerary:

9:30 AM – Platypus Tours picks us up at The Meritage.
10:30 AM – Tour of Schramsberg Caves & tasting
12:00 PM - Tasting & lunch at Benessere
1:45 PM – Tasting at Frog’s Leap
3:15 PM – Tasting at Hall (St. Helena)
5:00 PM – Platypus Tours drops us off at The Meritage.
6:45 PM – Sarah/Derek and Jon Marc/Gigi have dinner at Celadon.

So because we didn't have anything to do until 9:30, Derek was up and in the shower at 4:15 a.m. BAH! We met up with the Arnolds for breakfast at 7:45.

Platypus picked us up and we headed up to Schramsberg. It's known for its sparkling wine, which has been served by every U.S. President since Nixon.
Half of our group went on the tour at 10:30 and the other half at 11. We volunteered for 11. Our tour guide was also there early and let us taste some wines before the tour that were not on the tasting list.
The cave tour was really awesome! We got to see how they've made and stored wine and learned about the winery's history.

Interestingly, no one purchased any wine here. We are not the bubbly type, but the experience was definitely worth it!

From there, we headed to Benessere. We all thought it was "Bena Sarie" but they were calling it "Ben Essery" at the winery. Mark, our Platypus tour guide, set up lunch while we were shown the grounds and sampled the wine.
Over lunch, our winery host shared that as his day job, he helps place people with special needs into jobs/careers and works to train them. With 3 special needs family members myself, and 3 more family members of our group, we all totally fell in love with him. I think everyone bought wine - either because of our host or because of the fact that the $15 tasting fee was credited if you made a purchase. We loved the intimacy - we were the only people at the winery!
We hopped back into our Platypus bus and headed over to Frog's Leap.
The views at Frog's Leap were gorgeous... but the wine was probably below average.
If the last place was intimate, Frog's Leap was anything but. There were lots of people - we even saw a few strollers and at least 2 obviously pregnant women. We took in the views and the wine, then joined Josh and Lane who were smoking cigars on a bench.

Erin had just visited Frog's Leap last month and recommended it for the views and the corn hole. Unfortunately, the corn hole boards had been abused so we couldn't play. Honestly though, even if they were in working order, I think the line for them would have been over an hour.
I don't think anyone bought any wine at Frog's Leap. At this point in the day, we were all feeling pretty good, so the fact that our group of 10 didn't buy anything should tell you enough about the quality of the wine here.

We ended our day of tastings at Hall in St. Helena. With CHEESE!

Derek "revisited" probably 10 wines while he was checking out. Seriously - he and Jon Marc were gone for at least 30 minutes.

We headed back to the hotel for about 30 minutes, then started our trek to dinner. The hotel shuttle was such a cluster, but we managed to get to downtown Napa. We had a quick shot at a bar, then headed to Celadon for dinner with Jon Marc and Gigi. Our food was good, but not like the night before!! Food porn:
After another circus to get back to the hotel, we called it a night. We were so worn out! Drinking all day is tough work! We set our alarm for 4 a.m. so we'd be ready for the shuttle to the hot air balloon ride the next day at 5 a.m.

We later found out that we missed some awesome terrible bowling when the other part of our crew returned from dinner (our hotel had bowling lanes in it). Josh won with a 119. Seriously?!? It led to some good trash talking the next day though!

Our loot from Day 1:
From left to right, that's Walt 2011 Pinot Noir (from Hall), Hall 2010 Darwin (Red Blend), Hall 2009 T bar T Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon, 2010 Benessere 2010 Old Vines Zinfandel, and 2008 Benessere Phenomenon (Red Blend).

10 year anniversary trip - Day 1

We just returned from our first (but not last) trip to Napa Valley. We went with a group of 6 other friends (and met up with 2 more while we were there).

A quick pic of the kids as I dropped them off on Thursday night.

Followed by coming home and working, finishing up packing, then sleeping until 4 a.m.

Friday's itinerary:

7:00 AM – Sarah & Derek depart DFW - Virgin Airlines - is there any other way?!
9:00 AM – Arrive at SFO and go to Parc 55 Hotel to drop luggage. Hang at Union Square and see half our group on the street.
10:45 AM – Meet at Parc 55 to take trolley to Fisherman’s Wharf.
11:30 AM – Lunch at Scoma’s. Drool....
1:00 PM – Cat/Josh and Jill/Steven take Alcatraz Tour.
Sarah/Derek and Lolly/Lane visit local bars.
*Pick up booze for limo ride
5:00 PM – Meet at Parc 55 for bus to Napa
6:30 PM – Check in to The Meritage.
7:30 PM – Black Tie Taxi picks us up at The Meritage.
9:00 PM – Dinner at Bottega Get a bucket for the drool.

Ok - that's the short version... now with pics.

Union Square -->
Then on to catch a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf. A bum mis-guided us. He suggested going up the line some to avoid the ticket line. But every car was full at that point.

So after 3 missed cars, we walked back up and hopped on.

Our driver "Hang on tourists! Lean in, tourists." Or to people at stops along the way "Hey tourists, the next car is empty. [quietly to our car] No - it's not, but you gotta give them hope."

Quick walk to Scoma's (damn good seafood - Dungeness Crab makes me want to slap somebody). We shared the Dungeness crab cakes and lobster ravioli. Is that a lobster tail on the plate?! Indeed!
Then half of our group of 8 went to Alcatraz. The other 4 of us just wanted to take in the city and intentionally had no plan. And our afternoon magically filled up with a 30 min walk around town to meet a college friend of Lane's, Mike. Derek used one of SF's public bathroom's on the way. They automatically clean themselves!!! But it takes 55 seconds in between each person and Derek just.couldn't.wait. So he used it with the door open. About 30 minutes later, I got a pic from my dad of Grant doing almost the same thing. Like father like son!
We tried to get into a cigar bar, but they didn't open until 4 p.m. So we went around the corner to a wine bar at the suggestion of a local on the street. At 3 p.m. we tried the cigar bar again, and Mike persuaded them to let us in. They even turned others down, saying "No. They have a private reservation." YEAH MIKE!! Mike gets even more points for driving us back to the hotel to meet our ride to Napa.
In the van on the way to Napa, Jill brought Cards Against Humanity to entertain us (and wine). It was definitely entertaining (and I won!!)
We checked into the hotel, freshened up and headed to Bottega. If Scoma's makes you want to slap someone, Bottega may lead to assault... or worse. BEST MEAL OF THE TRIP!!!
I had the Ribolita Tuscan vegetable and bread minestrone, white beans, cavolo nero, olive oil, bruschetta, Parmiggiano Reggiano.

Derek had the mushroom appetizer special. It was AWESOME! I don't have the full description so insert some fancy cooking words into the description, then add some more and wipe your drool. Others in our group had the Green Eggs and Ham or Polenta under glass (GOOOOD)!
For our second course, we shared the Red Wheat Tagliarini Bolognese veal, pork and porcini mushroom sugo, rosemary, parmigiano reggiano. Others in our group had Ricotta Gnocchi della Nonna ricotta "pillows" with old hen salsa di pomodoro and pecorino - it was also awesome!
For our third course, we shared the Wood Grilled Lamb Chops braised kumquat dressing, pistachio pesto, and cauliflower fregola Sarda. Nom, nom, nom!!! But we declared the Smoked & Braised Short Ribs polenta-speck polpette, espresso agro dolce glaze, smokey jus to be the winner of the night.

We had molten chocolate dessert. I don't have the full description, but it came out hot and wrapped in the oh-so-thin specialty cooking paper, then tableside they unwrapped it and poured a delicious white sauce on top, then sprinkled with shaved pistachios. My iPhone photos don't do it justice, but I've GOT to try!!
We headed back to the hotel and CRASHED HARD!!! Derek and I had been up for 22 hours.