Karen and Byron, with consultation from our California friends Pam and Warner, developed the itinerary for a day in Napa. The day would consist of driving out from San Francisco, where Byron lives and we are visiting, to Bistro Don Giovanni, located at 4110 Howard Lane in Napa, where we met Pam and Warner who were in Napa for a conference. Earlier in the week they had been to the Patel Winery, which is one of their favorites and brought a bottle of their 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon. We paid the corkage fee and had it with the lunch. Pam loves their fried olives with marcona almonds, so of course we started with that dish. Karen and I shared a pear and arugula salad and a Mandilli, ‘silk handkerchief’ pasta in an authentic Genovese creamy basil pesto sauce. Byron had the Gnochetti al Ragu, which was a different take on Gnocchi with a lamb ragu and truffle pecorino. Both were very good and by spitting the portions not too much when we were going to be eating during the afternoon wine tastings and a full dinner before returning to San Francisco.
After our good-byes to Pam and Warner, we went to Piazza Del Dotto, family wineries and caves, 1055 Atlas Peak Road, Napa. (www.DelDottoVineyards.com). Pam had identified it as a place she has wanted to visit and was supposed to be interesting for the architecture if not the wine. Our wine tour guide was Al, who seemed very knowledgeable of this winery and wine production in general. After an introductory Chardonnay, pleasant but not inspiring, we walked up to the cave, which Al informed us cost about a half billion dollars to construct as all materials were imported from Italy and constructed by eleven Italian artisans who were brought to the site for three years. The caves continue under construction with the expectation that they will eventually constitute nearly 29,000 square feet underground.
Once inside the caves we understood where the half billion went as they are marble walls with hand laid terrazzo flooring. All barrels were from either French or American Oak and are only used twice by Del Dotto. Our tasting was from the barrels, with Al using a glass device he inserted into the barrel, filling it with wine, and by putting his thumb over the top end, he could withdraw wine and fill a small amount in our glasses. All of the wines we tasted were from their 2020 vintage. Al discussed the wildfires that year that caused them to dump half of their juice. They were simply unable to remove the smokey taste. What they served us was pleasant enough, but not great and possibly impacted by the fires that year. Since we did not sample any other vintages (other than a specially requested 2017 Syrah, which I thought better than the Cabs) we were unable to determine the impact.
The wines we sampled in the cave were: 2020 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, 2020 Piazza Del Dotto Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, 2020 St. Helena Mountain MGX Fouquet French Oak Block 2 Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (my personal favorite of the Cabernets), 2020 St. Helena Mountain American Oak UStave Block 2 Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.
After the tour of the caves, which were over the top no matter how you describe them, with a room that included original paintings of the Del Dotto family members on the walls in one room with statuary from the same Italian stone quarry where Michelangelo bought his stone. In an adjacent room is the tasting of the 2020 Villa Del Lago Cabernet Sauvignon, which Al described as their best wine. Again, pleasant, but not a barn burner in my estimation. What was interesting in this room was a series of original paintings, again by an Italian painter, of Dave Del Dotto, the patriarch of the family, dresses as a knight, fighting a dragon, which represented COVID 19. Through the paintings we see him rise to the challenge and ultimately vanquish the COVID dragon, although baby dragons could be seen hanging from the ceiling of the cave in the painting, representing the variants which have yet to attack mankind.
After the cave tour, Al escorted us back through the main house to a pleasant patio area behind where we were served a pizza and hashbrowns to go with the remaining wine we brought down in our glasses from the cave. This is where the specially requested Syrah was served to just the three of us and not the others who toured with us. This is also where Byron told us where the Del Dotto money to build this winery came from. Dave Del Dotto invented the Infomercial and his first big product was the ShamWoW, cloth to wash your car. So, infomercials built the Del Dotto estate.
Our next tasting was at Faust Winery, only about ten minutes away. It is located at 2867 St. Helena Highway, St. Helena. (www.faustwines,com) Everything in Napa seems quite close although the valley itself is about thirty miles encompassing five familiar named towns.
Faust was interesting because the tasting was held in a renovated old Victorian house painted black on the exterior, black on the first floor and white on the second. It is supposed to mirror the story of Dr. Faustus, by the German writer Goethe. This represented the deal to sell one’s soul to the devil for money, power and wisdom. The reason given for the name of the winery is that family discussed whether to make blended wines or only pure varietals. The son sold his soul to mass produced blends while the father produced the Faust varietals. They greeted us with a Chardonnay, which was a bit sweet for our taste, almost more like a Riesling. Then our guide seated us on the front terrace and served us the Lure, a 2017 Syrah, which I liked enough to purchase three bottles, shipped to our Texas home. This was followed by a 2018 Cabernet described as The Deal and finished with the Pact, a 2019 The Pact, Cabernet Reserve. Good wines that we enjoyed, but not ones we decided to purchase. With the wine came a black box with French bread, carrots, radishes, pea pods, a remoulade and a yoghurt sauce. We sampled these between tastes and enjoyed the repartee with Troy, our guide, who our son Byron had met on an earlier visit.
We had a little extra time before dinner, so we stopped by the Failla Winery, without a booked tasting and simply asked if we could buy a case of their 2017 Tin Barn Syrah, which we had with our dinner in San Francisco earlier in this trip. They agreed to sell it to us and ship it as well. So, on to dinner.
On an earlier trip, Byron had taken his girlfriend Chrissy to Press in St. Helena. (587 St. Helena Highway, St. Helena www.pressnapavalley.com ) The Chef here has had two Michelin stars in prior restaurants and Chrissy thought their risotto was the best she had ever had. That was the recommendation coming in and set our expectations. In this restaurant we had an extremely knowledgeable waiter and we pretty much followed his recommendations. That started with the 2019 Pott Agnes Sorell Cabernet Franc, which is a limited-edition wine and completely sold out at the winery. This was a great way to start the dinner as it had a very long finish in the mouth we quite enjoyed. The first course was a seeded pretzel epi, with cultured yogurt butter with caviar and sweet onion powder. We all dug into this, even though not particularly hungry having eaten all day long, or so it seemed. This was followed by ricotta gnudi, which is squash blossom with a parmesan consommé. The ricotta filling melted in our mouths. Byron tried the sweet and sour pig ears, with espelette glaze, Jacobsen orchard fig and avocado crema. While they looked like ham, we chose to watch Byron enjoy them rather than partaking.
While not on the menu this evening, our waiter was able to obtain two servings of the risotto which had a parmesan foam, giving it a creamy and lightly cheesy taste, which confirmed Chrissy’s opinion. We also tried the truffle-glazed chicken, with smoked bacon, roasted sunchokes and sauce vin jaune. At this point we thought we were done until our waiter started discussing the desserts. They have four on the menu and we tried three of them. The café au lait is coffee crème, milk ice cream and cardamom caramel, which Byron enjoyed, a brown butter maple cremeux, with green apple sorbet, pain d’epices and mulled cider, which Karen and I shared, and a jivara chocolate crème, with orange cocoa crumble, olive oil sorbet and chocolate sponge. We all shared the latter as we all love chocolate.
The ride back to San Francisco sustained a lively debate across many different subjects, but all were cast against the mellow glow from a day in Napa. A great day we will want to expand upon during a future trip back to see our son. In the meantime, we will have wine arriving at our Texas home, which will sustain us with the memories, stoking our curiosity of what we did not see or sample, and causing us to want to return soon.
