Dunn – you mentioned it, and it’s a great visit.
Grace Family – another historic/classic. beautiful wines and a real intimate experience. one of the greats, imo.
Restaurants:
Ciccio – Yountville. Great pasta and wood fired pizza
Cook – St Helena classic. Also Italian comfort food/homemade pasta
Angele – great little French bistro in Napa. Cozy, good food.
Goose & Gander/Charter Oak – both St Helena spots. Delicious burgers, great cocktails.
There’s also Press in St Helena which should be mentioned if a very deep Napa wine list is desired. A longtime standby for this kind of thing. Quite expensive, fixed menu in the dining room, but if you sit at the bar you can order a la carte and enjoy the wine list.
i think it is interesting to try some classic wineries like Ridge (go to Sonoma if you are in Napa Valley), Forman, Grgich Hill, Montelena (pay for one of their higher end tastings), Hanzell, etc., etc.
Could not disagree more. On my first trip to Napa I had the same thought—to visit a historic property.
I did their high end library tasting and while the wines were good, I left disappointed. Got whisked into a room by the sales guy, a bunch of others, and an employee was also part of the tasting as a guest. It was all “judgment of Paris this, oh also join our club it’s great, don’t you think it’s odd to drink a Chardonnay from 2013? Ours lasts awhile in the cellar. Only available via our club! Get the estate for 20% less when do you futures with our club! We throw a party for our club members and it’s great! We invested in a warehouse in the east coast so that our club members get their wines faster!”
They did not show the grounds, vineyards, or winemaking facility. It was actually my first stop of the trip so I didn’t know any better. Got outclassed above and beyond by so many others I visited. Wouldn’t recommend the visit to anyone if I’m being honest.
If you haven’t been to Spring Mountain estate, it’s a must. Definitely select their library vintage tasting ($150), they pour four vintages. Last time I went we tried back to 88’. We were in the cave, but I’d recommend requesting the old mansion to have the tasting, if available.
I also recommend Promontory. Haven’t been myself, but went to Harlan last year and we dusted a bottle of Krug among four of us before we started sampling red.
Also had a poor tasting at Montelena. We left before they were finished and never went back. Didn’t get pulled into a room for a sales pitch, was just highly unimpressed with the robot like tasting and the wines didn’t stand out.
Last time I went 10 years ago, I stopped outside Montelena at the end of the day to take some pictures. We had recently seen Bottle Shock and it was cool. Also have been to Forman a couple times in the past and met Ric. The women who used to work for him (forget her name) was very nice but a tad bit disorganized.
I recently went to Montelena in Feb of this year. Most of our reservations were with “berserker-type” smaller wineries, so I figured I had to go see 1 of the “classics”. We were “pulled” into a room but it was nice and comfortable - I think there were about 10 people plus the CM Employee around a large banquet table. The “sales guy” did say at least 2-3x he doesn’t work on commissions, and in fact, at the end, he just pointed down a long hallway and said if you liked anything you can go down there to purchase. They did talk about the Judgement of Paris, but hey, not everyone knows the story. That said, there were no tours of the facilities/grounds and the tasting I did was ok - it was a “vintage” tasting so we tasted 2 Chards and 2 cabs from different vintages to compare along with 1 Zin. all in all, it wasn’t the best tasting we did on our trip, but I could see how some may appreciate it. They have another tasting where you can do just their high end Cab with 5 flights that span ~15 years vintage wise so you can do some comparisons.
Agree with those who have mentioned the Mayacamas tasting room downtown. We have been there 3 or 4 times and have never been disappointed. It is close to Compline and the Archer hotel and some of the other spots that have been mentioned.
Peter, I think you were referring to Margaret from Forman. She worked there a long time and I believe left working there earlier this year.
Cimarossa was a blast. They built their tasting room on top of a mountain overlooking everything–but at the time, the only way to get there was a vineyard tour on their ATV. Great wines too.
I believe Lerner was $125. It was an awesome, completely private experience. We were not rushed at all - there for around 2 hrs - and could have stayed longer but for lunch reservations. Very generous pours that just kept coming. Fee is waived with purchase.
I don’t remember the MM tasting fee, but we bought so may have been waived as a result.
Wineries:
-Cimarossa (wonderful experience on Howell Mtn; well made wines)
-Tench (kind people; lovely Tench fruit)
-Continuum (incredible spot up on Pritchard Hill; beautiful wine)
-Theorem (Semi new-ish project on Diamond Mtn; TRB wines; awesome food pairings with the wines)
-The Vineyardist (shares a driveway with Theorem on Diamond Mtn; views, wines and experience are all top notch)
-Progeny (O’Shagunessey’s Mt Veeder project; beautifully designed winery; tasty wines)
Restaurants:
-Ciccio in Yountville (gotta ask for the pork chop, still think about it years later)
-Bistro Jeanty in Yountville (my all time fave; steak frites)
-AdHoc in Yountville (Thomas Keller’s take in fried chicken…best paired with bubbles of course)
-La Calenda in Yountville (Thomas Keller’s take on authentic Mexican food; nice change up)
-Bistro Don Giovanni in Oak Knoll off 29 (great Italian food)
-Torc in Napa (one of the best meals I’ve had)
-Brasswood in St Helena (awesome property; mozzarella is legendary)
Montelena is garbage, still trying to hold onto their 1974(?) vintage reputation. Went there and they were the snobbiest people on the entire trip. Other higher end wineries were way more down to earth.
Wineries-
Pott- Aaron is Greer’s winemaker and friends with Rob. Small estate on Mt Veeder, exceptional cabs and red blends, a fun viognier.
Ruston- tiny family winery in St Helena at the bottom of the Mayacamas mtns. Great values, taste like they should be priced 2x more.
Restaurants-
Cook- second this recommendation in St Helena. Never had anything but a fabulous meal & experience there, great for groups.
We enjoyed Torc & ZuZu (tapas) in downtown Napa on our most recent trip. Torc can go head-to-head with almost any restaurant in the valley and ZuZu is a great casual spot.
Yes and I’m lovin it.
So far MacDonald, Greer, Realm, Lerner Project and hopefully Dunn. Will make other appointments based on the many great suggestions here.
