The Glass Fire, which started early Sunday, September 27 in Napa County as a 20-acre brush fire, rapidly burned over 67,000 acres. Winds whipped up and down the valley pushing the blaze in all directions and from one side of the northern Napa Valley to the next, engulfing vineyards, wineries, businesses and homes from St.…
On the evening of October 8, we witnessed a furry of hurricane-force winds, the likes of which had never been seen in Wine Country before. Starting in the northwestern section of the Napa Valley, at the foot of Mt. St. Helena north of Calistoga and traveling west towards Santa Rosa, trees fell onto power lines…
2006-2014… these vintages all have their own story to tell, and, like children in the same family, each has an underlying similarity while still being very different. These wines show the effects of this north-east facing hillside vineyard planted on volcanic ash and rock, which gets more late afternoon shadow than sun during the long growing…
Last weekend, we participated in another family-style wine pairing and cooking class at one of our favorite restaurants, Rosso, in Santa Rosa. The theme was appropriate to the winter season; “Soups, Stocks and Stews”, imagining us all coming out on a wet and chilly Saturday morning into the kitchen to eat hearty winter fare. The…
Every year after harvest, we are blessed by an amazing show of fall colors in the valley. If we have received measurable early fall rains, there is a carpet of fine new grassy growth between the vines, highlighting the dramatic difference between the bright new growth in the vine rows and the declining yellow leaves…
Friends and clients called with worried anticipation at the brief, but notable, rain storm that we experienced in the Napa Valley a couple of weeks ago. We received almost and inch of rain, much of it coming in a sudden downpour, and then the clouds cleared and the sun came out with temperatures in the…
We awake at what should be the crack of dawn and a sunny fall morning, but instead we are engulfed by darkness and heavy fog on the third day of a non-stop winter storm – constant buckets of rain and occasional mighty gust of wind that shakes the house, some up to 60 miles an…
Every small town has their 4th of July traditions. The Napa Valley celebrates like many others; parties around the pool, BBQ with friends and family followed by a night of fireworks whether put on by one of the big local wineries and seen from afar or on the street in front of our house with…
Bocce Ball season in the Wine Country has started again, every court at the local park filled with dozens of teams each night for the next 12 weeks (basically until harvest). Bocce nights are social evenings with neighbors and friends, eating and drinking and sharing delightful picnic dishes before, during and after the games. (One…
In the Napa Valley we are blessed with dozens of exceptional restaurants locally, and we frequent them often. Within 15 minutes of our home in St. Helena some of our favorites are Farmstead, Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, Tra Vigne, Brassica, Gott’s/Taylor’s Refresher, Market and Terra. A little further afield in Yountville, 15 minutes further down the…