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Larson Family Winery

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We held our 2nd Annual Bocce Ball tournament on June 23, 2006, at the Larson Family Winery. The Larson Family Winery has a beautiful Bocce Ball court that overlooks their Chardonnay Vineyards.

This winery is not exactly in the Napa Valley but in the Los Carneros wine region that spans both Sonoma and Napa Counties. Many people consider Carneros to be just a portion of the Napa Valley. It is in actuality, an entirely separate wine region where Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and sparkling wine reign.

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The Larson Family Winery is a much different experience from what you are likely to find when visiting other wineries in the Carneros wine region. It is a more homey and relaxed experience. The staff is very friendly and a casual style permeates the tasting room. The winery was once the site of the largest rodeo in the Bay Area. A beautiful mural in the tasting room depicts this event.

The Larson Family produces some very nifty wines. This year they began making two jug wines, a one-liter cute jug of white wine and a red wine. The white wine is a Chardonnay and called Wingo White. The red is called Sonoma Red and is a blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Pinot Noir. Both wines sell for $20. Another new wine, and our favorite of the Larson tasting was the Pinot Grigio. It is a very fruity and crisp wine and was utterly refreshing for our Bocce Ball lunch. This wine sells for $20 and this is generally more than you would pay for most Pinot Grigios. The Pinot Noir has a knockout aroma of raspberry and strawberry and delicious delicate flavors. The Pinot sells for $30.

The Good: No tasting fee except for the Cab; relaxed and pleasant environment, the Pinot Grigio, the Jug wines; Bocce Ball Court available, nice picnic area.

The Bad: We didn’t care for the 2005 Gewürztraminer, last year’s 2004 was much better but it is long gone.

Bistro Don Giovanni

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This was the weekend of the NASCAR event at the Infineon Raceway. We were fortunate to find lodging for one night (a rarity in Napa) for seven couples at the Chablis Inn just off Redwood Road in Napa. The inn is nothing fancy but it is quite adequate. Room rates range from $149 to $169 for weekends. Five minutes away is the Bistro Don Giovanni, a favorite of locals and travelers to the Napa Valley. The earliest reservation time available was 8:15 and we were told we would need to sit at two tables, one for six, and one for eight.

We showed up about 45 minutes before to have a glass of bubbly at the bar. To our surprise, our table was ready, and it was one table comfortably seating all fourteen of us. They sat us in their semi-enclosed outdoor patio. This was very refreshing on this hot evening.

The entrées are moderately priced. Prices range from a pizza at around $12 to a scrumptious rib eye grilled steak for $28. Corkage fee at the Bistro is $15 and that is just about right. We think anything over $15 is price gouging. The Bistro has a corkage policy if you buy one of their wines, they waive the corkage on one bottle of wine. We wish more restaurants would have this option. Our group brought in four terrific wines: a magnum of Seltzner 1983 Cab, a Caymus 1987 Cab, a Hanna 1999 Cab, and delicious white Pinot Grigio from Chalk Hill Winery.

The restaurant was extremely accommodating and the service was excellent. The noise level is somewhat loud but not enough to be a nuisance. With appetizers, entrées, desserts, and coffee, our check came to $125 per couple. We rate the Bistro a 4.5 out of 5 on our Five-Point Rating system.

The Good: Delicious food at fair prices. The corkage fee of $15 waived when you purchase a bottle of wine, excellent service, great wine menu.
The Bad: A little noisy.

Bocce Ball at a Winery

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We spent an entire day playing Bocce Ball at the Larson Family Winery in Los Carneros. Bocce Ball among the vineyards with a group of friends is a fabulous way to enjoy the wine country. There are several wineries in the Napa Valley with Bocce Ball courts. Whenever we visit a winery and see a Bocce Ball court we try our hand a game. It is a fun sport and low-key on the mind and body. Check out our list of wineries with Bocce Ball courts.

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This is our 2nd annual Bocce Ball tournament. We have set up a double elimination tournament with 12 of our wine-loving friends. We meet at the Larson Family Winery just off Highway 121 in the famous wine and sparkling wine region of Los Carneros.

The winners of this tournament, as occurred last year, were first-time players. Don and Nell capture the tournament with relative ease like they had been playing the sport for years. We modified the rules a bit so we could get through the 11 games scheduled within a three hour period. We took time off to wine taste at the Larson Family tasting room and to enjoy our picnic lunch among the vineyards. We decided beforehand that each couple contribute $20 for prizes. We award Larson wine certificates to our top three finishers.

We will cap off our day with a group dinner at the Bistro Don Giovanni later in the evening. Bocce Ball information.

Noah’s Vineyard

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Noahs-Vineyard.jpgYou might forget you are actually in the Napa Valley when you visit Noah’s Vineyards. Noah’s has no frills, no fancy wine room, no tours, no caves, just good wine and a very laid back style.

Noah Taylor and Alan Haywood own the winery. Both their families have ties to wineries in the Sonoma Valley. The winery has just a few acres of Merlot growing outside the winery and the rest of the grapes come from other locations in Napa and Sonoma. Their case production is very small, about 3000 cases per year, with no plans to expand. It seems that both Noah and Alan are free spirits who are happy maintaining a slow and easy lifestyle centered on wine, music, and surfing.

Dan Blach runs the unusual and unpretentious tasting room. Dan was wearing a baseball hat and sweats pants very uncommon to the usual Napa style tasting room. We enjoyed all the wines but particularly the Merlot, which was very smooth and well structured with flavors. The Merlot ages a couple of years in the barrel and more in the bottle. The winery supposedly is open by appointment only, but Dan says he is usually here daily and will serve visitors without an appointment.

To find Noah’s Vineyard, take the Yountville Exit on Highway 29 towards the center of town. Turn right on Washington St and head south a short distance. Watch for the signs which point to the right, down a country lane off Washington.

The Good: No tasting fee, casual and unpretentious, delicious Merlot.
The Bad: The Noah’s label wines range from $25 to $40. Maybe the tasting room is a bit too rustic for Napa type visitors. Picnic area needs work.

August Briggs Winery

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We recently went on a hunt in the Napa Valley for wineries that do not charge a tasting fee. Tasting fees are the norm in the Napa Valley. The highest we know of is at Rubicon Estate where you need to shell out $25 to taste five wines.

We can understand why wineries need to charge for tasting. Bottom line, they need to make money. They also want to avoid pouring wine to those who are not interested in discovering their wines but are more interesting in maintaining their wine “buzz.�?

We must admit however, that we prefer not to pay a tasting fee or second best, at least have your tasting fee applied to a wine purchase. Some wineries offer a logo glass. We have enough of those, and besides, they break easily. Our first report on tasting rooms in the Napa Valley with no tasting fee is the August Briggs Winery

August Briggs Winery is located at the north end of the Valley on the Silverado Trail near Calistoga. We got a chance to taste some delicious wines from both the bottle and the barrel. August “Joe” Briggs, the owner and winemaker, happened to be in the barrel room at the time and took some time to chat with us. Nice guy! We liked very much the August Briggs 2003 Napa Valley Zinfandel and the 2003 Russian River Pinot Noir.

August Briggs Winery

The winery purchases most of it’s grapes from long-term vineyard contracts they have in Napa and Sonoma counties. They make many different labels of wine, all in relatively small amounts.

We very much enjoyed our visit here. The tasting room was warm and welcoming. Grandfather Briggs was happy to show us around the barrel room and gives a few barrel samples.

The wines at August Briggs are on the expensive side, that means for us anything over $20 bottle.

The Good:
Good tasting room staff, no tasting fee, nice picnic area, barrel tasting on occasion.
The Bad: Not open daily, wines are over $30 a bottle.

Paso Robles Wine Country: Our two day getaway

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Paso Robles Wine Country, August 19 to 21, 2003

The Paso Robles wine country is truly exciting. It is a vast wine region divided by Highway 101, with several different microclimates and grape growing regions that enable wineries to produce many different varietals of wine. We have visited the Paso Robles wine country several times and are always impressed as well as surprised by the quality of wines, restaurants, and places to stay.

We make a reservation at the Adelaida Inn in Paso Robles for two nights. The rooms are large, clean, and very comfortable. With discounts and mid-week prices our room charges are $66 per night. It’s a great deal considering that several nearby hotels are over $100 per night. There are also several very nice Bed & Breakfast spots in this wine region starting at about $150 or more per night.

We arrive in Paso Robles around noon and immediately head for the main part of town to purchase our deli lunch. Our deli stop is the Odyssey World Café that serves very nice European style sandwiches for lunch. We pack our lunch and head for Highway 46 West. The exit off Highway 101 is about a mile south of Spring St., the main thoroughfare in Paso Robles.

Our first winery stop is Castoro Cellars, on Bethel Road, which runs into Highway 46 on the left. Castoro is an excellent winery producing several different varieties. Castoro is celebrating its 20th year of producing fine wines. We like all their wines very much. We especially liked the Syrah, Petite Syrah, and a special anniversary bottling called “Diciannove Annui.” We also like the picnic area and decide to eat our lunch there. There are some very good wine values at Castoro.

Just a few yards from Castoro Cellars is the Jan Kris Winery. We pay a $3.00 fee to taste their wines. None of their wines make a big impression on us. They do serve lunch at the winery and many locals rave about their lunch.

Our next stop is relatively new to Paso Robles but not to winemaking. Turley Wine cellars is based in Napa but recently purchased the old Pesenti Winery and their vineyards. Turley makes high-end wines and sells wines through its mailing list or at the winery. The wines are in such demand that there is a two-year wait just to get on their mailing list. We do a comparison between a Pesenti Zinfandel and a Turley Zinfandel made from the same vineyard. What a remarkable difference! The Turley Zin is fabulous and smooth with complex flavors. Turley is located at 2900 Vineyard Drive.

We continue on Vineyard Drive crossing Highway 46. The next stop is another new winery called Opolo. The tasting room is housed in the wine barrel storage and wine production area. We are the only ones in the tasting room this afternoon and our server gives us lots of attention, filling us in on the winery and each of the wines. The Zins and Syrah are very good. The Pinot Noir is much heavier, with a unique fruity taste not found in any other Pinot Noirs that we have tasted. This is a small production winery and several of their wines were sold out. However, the next morning, at the Paso Robles Albertson’s we found all the Opolo wines that were not available at the winery.

Our final stop for the day is the Norman Winery. Our favorite wine here is the Vino Rosado, a very dry Grenache wine. It is excellent. We are also impressed with the rest of their wines. The winery has a very nice picnic area and one that we will have to take advantage of on a future trip.

For dinner, we first stop at the Villa Creek Restaurant Bar on Pine St., across from the City Park. This is one of our favorite spots. We have a glass of wine and order the shrimp appetizer. It is so good! We ask our waiter for the recipe and to our surprise, a few minutes later he brings us a computer printout of the recipe. We rate the Villa Creek 5.0 on our “Five Point Rating Scale” for the delicious appetizer, the atmosphere, and the friendly waiter who gave us the shrimp recipe.

We stroll over to Spring St. and have dinner at the Café Alloro. This is a very reasonably priced Italian restaurant serving up some great dinners. The wine list is good and priced appropriately. We rate the Alloro a 4.0 on our 5 point scale.

Day Two
We stop for coffee and pastries at the Café Vio on Riverside Ave, near the town square. We relax with a good cup of coffee and plan our day of wine tasting. Before we set out for tasting, we want to find another good deli and check out the local Albertson’s. We find that there are really not too many good delicatessens in Paso Robles. Interestingly, we find three delis under construction and they indicate they will be open for business in September or October. We look forward to trying these out on our next visit.

The local Albertson’s has a terrific inventory of local wines at prices less than at the wineries. Again, we found wines that were sold out at some of the wineries we visited.

On our second day of wine tasting, we head out again on Highway 46 West. One of the first wineries on Highway 46 is the Zenaida Cellars. This is a small family owned winery producing some very nice varietals. All of their wines are estate bottled, produced from 65 acres of vines that surround the winery. Zenaida also doubles as a great lodging establishment. The loft, as they call it, is above the tasting room and accommodates up to six.

We continue on Highway 46 West about another mile to the Grey Wolf Cellars. The tasting room is a charming 60-year-old farmhouse. The winery is family owned and produces only a small amount of wines each year. We find the wines are good but none that we can rave about.

Our next stop is the Adelaida Cellars on Adelaida Road. We take some beautiful backcountry roads to make our way to this winery. The tasting room is located in the main wine facility and it can be noisy but fun. They are completed sold out of all their white wines so there was no chance to judge these wines. They had plenty of reds to taste. We liked the Zinfandels and the Pinot Noir the best. We were ready for our picnic lunch and fortunately the only picnic table at Adelaida Cellars was available. We were hoping for a glass of chilled white wine on this hot summer day but since no whites were available we settled for a glass of Zinfandel.

Our final stop of the day was the Tobin James Cellars. The winery is located on the opposite side to Highway 101, off Highway 46 East. It is about 8 miles east of Paso Robles. The tasting room décor is that of an old style cowboy saloon. The atmosphere is fun and relaxed. Tobin James makes several wines and all the ones we tasted were very good. We particularly like the Syrah and the Cabernet. Our server is very knowledgeable and informative.

That is enough wine tasting for the day and we head back to the Adelaida Inn for some poolside rest and relaxation.

For dinner, we choose another Italian restaurant, Buona Tavola. It has been open for about a year. This is their second restaurant. The original restaurant is in the nearby city of San Luis Obispo and is a favorite among the locals. They have a great menu with a terrific wine list. We rate the restaurant a 4.0 on our “Five Point Rating Scale.”

Next morning, we have our coffee and goodies at the Brewed Behavior. It is a very nice comfortable coffee shop. We take our time and then head for home.

CALIFORNIA WINE COUNTRY REGIONS:

Carneros • Livermore • Lodi • Mendocino • Monterey • Napa Valley • Paso Robles • Santa Barbara County • Santa Cruz Mts. • Sierra Foothills • Russian River • Sonoma Valley

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