9:00 AM - I'm finally awake enough to drag my ass out of bed and head down to breakfast. Oh man that was a lousy night and with a big day ahead of us, I'm a bit concerned that I might hit a wall today. Oh well, not much I can do about that but forge ahead.
11:30 AM - We arrive at our first destination for the day, Caymus Vineyards, for a semi-private tasting. We are one of four couples at the tasting, and although we are the only ones from another country, we are by far the closest ones to Napa. The other couples all came from the deep southeast of the US. None of them have even heard of Canada.
OK, I probably am slightly exaggerating there.
The wines are terrific, of course, but we leave without buying any because we can easily get these back home...and Lord knows we don't need any more wine to try to get through customs when this trip is over.
1:00 PM - We arrive at Joseph Phelps for our next experience; we are actually booked for 1:30 but they have no trouble getting us in early. They have taken great care to ensure we have a great guest experience in a temporary venue; their normal tasting area is undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation, due to open up sometime next spring. The temporary area is very comfortable and our guide takes us through a tasting of a lot of great wine. Just about everything we taste here is high-end and expensive, and we are fortunate to taste two vintages of their flagship wine, Insignia (2006 and 2010). They also feature a couple of terrific Pinot Noirs, and we end up picking up one of their not-so-expensive Pinots which I suspect we will consume on this trip, so we don't have to try to bribe the Customs office when we try to get back into Canada.
3:00 PM - We arrive at Duckhorn, again we are a little ahead of our appointment but no problem getting in early and we are seated at a nice table inside. Outdoor tastings are available everywhere but it's just too freaking hot today...it's over 100 degrees. This is another winery who's wine is readily available back home (notice a pattern??), although most of the specific wines we get to taste today are winery-specific and not available in most stores, but at least we get a flavor of their winemaking technique. As usual, all the wines are top quality.
On the way back from Duckhorn, we stop in at Opus One and pick up a bottle of their 2010 that we tasted yesterday. This has officially become the most expensive bottle of wine I have ever purchased (outside of a restaurant) and we will be putting this one into storage for a special occasion. We drive it back to the hotel, in fact, because we don't want to leave it in a hot car for even a couple hours.
5:30 PM - We arrive at Robert Mondavi for our "Twilight Tour and Tasting". Tracey is quite disappointed to discover that Robert Pattinson is NOT going to be here.
Another great tour and tasting experience, which ends with a lovely charcuterie plate and an open-bar style tasting of whatever we wanted to taste, including their 2010 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon which recently received a score of 99 points from Wine Spectator magazine. It was fabulous, as was everything else. We also tasted an interesting Merlot from 2007; the interesting part was that it was still really closed...for a 7 year old wine, the tannins were very sharp and it definitely needed to age more. Our guide suggested it could age for 30 more years! I tend to agree; and that's quite a lot for a Merlot. I was going to pick up a couple of bottles of this but it turned out they were sold out, so as an apology for not being able to buy them, they gave us a half-bottle of Moscato for free! Very nice gesture and a beautiful end to this part of our trip.
7:49 PM - Back in the room, done for the day and exhausted, in a good way. Tracey says "how do you spell over-indulge? N-A-P-A". I would concur.
Look, here's the thing: If you are poor, or cheap, don't come here. It's simple. I say that as honest advice, it's not my attempt to appear rich or superior (which I don't claim to be), but if you enjoy wine and want to have a fantastic time, and don't mind paying for the experience, get on a freaking plane right now. This is simply an amazing part of the world, and I can't wait to come back and spend a week or so exploring the 1.7 billion wineries we didn't get to yet. If you stand in the right place and fall forward, chances are a part of your body will be laying in 3-4 different wineries. They are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. It's insane, in the best possible way.
Packing up our stuff tonight, preparing for two "one-night stands" the next couple of nights, so trying to pack just the right amount of clothes and toiletries into one bag so we don't have to lug our luggage around for the next couple nights.
Next up: Universal City!
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