Wine Tasting Wonderland
Thursday, June 25: Wine Tasting Day
A mere 17 of our friends joined us in Yountville for a pre-wedding wine-tasting extravaganza. We hired a private bus from Beau Wine Tours, whose driver, Woody, absolutely made our day. He was simply the best with a hilarious personality, gave us incredible service and even hooked us up with closed-to-the-public wineries!
We made our way from the Villagio, cameras and thirsty palates in tow, and went to V. Sattui winery. It's not only a winery, but also a marketplace that sells everything from wine glasses and pottery to a wide variety of cheese, bread, salami and other snacks for on-the-road picnics. The tasting room manager initially freaked out that we had 17 people with us, but considering I called two weeks ahead of time to give him a heads' up, he should've been ready for us. Regardless, we all split up into various tasting groups and had a great time. V. Sattui has two tastings specials: $5 tasting that gets you anything on their "regular" wine list (about 10 wines to choose from) and the $10 tasting, which gives you access to any of their reserve wines. I believe most of us did the $10 tasting, because really, why wouldn't you spend an extra $5 to get the better wines? Just my opinion.
We were at V. Sattui for about an hour and pretty much done with the "commercial winery" scene when we realized we had over another hour before our next tasting appointment. Woody came to our rescue right away, offering to make a call to his friend that just happens to run a tasting room for a private, appointment-only winery only five minutes away from V. Sattui. He made the call and within minutes we were whisked away to William Harrison, a gor-geous tiny winery on Silverado Trail. We were literally the only ones there and were given access to the whole deck in front of the winery. The manager came out (I forget his name) and gave us an impromptu tasting from whatever bottles he felt were their best wines. Normally, wineries offer a tasting menu of wines and pretty much stick to it, so it was really special that he decided to just bring out his favorite wines (which were fantastic, by the way). Bryan and I and our friends were all so excited to get away from the big crowds and just enjoy private time together without being rushed, pressured to buy anything or get out of the way for other antsy tasters. Of course we all did buy the wines, which is another story.
After William Harrison, we headed to Taylor's Automatic Refresher, arguably Bryan's and my favorite burger joint in all the world. He would say that it's a toss-up between Taylor's and the Burger Bar in Vegas, but they're totally two different experiences. Woody had us pre-order our meals, which was brilliant as the line at Taylor's can easily be around the corner. Once we got there we split up; a few people went to reserve tables, a few others went to order beer and wine, and the rest of us waited for our food. Woody had other ideas, however, as he flat-out refused to let his paying customers wait for our food. As a result, he herded our whole group over to the picnic tables and brought out every single one of our meals. It was incredible. If we needed more water, Woody was all over it. Not to mention it was 90 degrees and he was in a black suit with sunglasses. We kept telling him to sit down and let us take care of it, but he would have none of it. We couldn't believe how incredible of a guy he was, as serving us our lunch was definitely not in the "drive from winery to winery" contract!
After stuffing ourselves full of everything from western bacon to sourdough to ahi burgers and every kind of fry under the sun, we were off to a 2:30 appointment at Paraduxx. Paraduxx is owned by Duckhorn Vineyards, which is where Bryan's parents arranged for our rehearsal dinner (story coming later) to be held. Paraduxx is another small, gorgeous winery and they were 100% ready for us. We walked in and they had glasses of their rose in-hand and ready to distribute to each of us. We were then taken on a private tour of their winery facilities, which was great except for the tour guide's gross assumption that we were all obnoxious L.A. scenesters. As we headed out into the vineyard, he turned to all of us and exclaimed, "Okay city folks, get ready because you're in the country now. How does it feel?" Aside from mildly offending a few of our friends who were, in fact, raised on farms and rural areas throughout the country, we let it go and kept our eye on the prize: the conclusion of the tour and better yet, Paraduxx's fantastic wine.
At the end of the tour, we were taken to Paraduxx's beautiful outdoor patio and each offered an over-sized teak patio chair, complete with back pillow and shaded by walnut and avocado trees. Both the breeze and the wine were flowing, as we were individually presented with a wine tasting tray including four amazing Paraduxx wines and paired local cheeses. I have to give a huge thank you to Angela at Paraduxx who set it all up for us. It was there however, on Paraduxx's scenic patio, enjoying incredible time together and fabulous wine, that someone snuck a peak at their cell phone and yelled, "Michael Jackson's DEAD!" Well, forget about the serenity of Napa Valley, as there was a mad rush (myself included) to get out our phones and check on the status of the King of Pop's impending health crisis. It was hysterical actually, as there we were, in the middle of wine country, surrounded by miles and miles of peace and quiet and rolling vineyards, yet we had an insatiable desire to figure out what was going on with none other than Michael Jackson. There were disputing reports from TMZ, CNN, Yahoo! and our own insider email from a friend who worked at E! News, but the hysteria eventually subsided and we concluded that Woody needed to play – again and again – P.Y.T. as an R.I.P. tribute to the former K.O.P. Despite the craziness of it all, the memory of that part of the day and all of us singing aloud to MJ songs in the executive coach will forever stick with me.
We finished off the day back in Yountville at Domaine Chandon, famous for their sparkling wine. Woody had the insider track at that winery, too, as he let us know that Thursday's meant "half off any bottle" and that we should buy bottles instead of individually signing up for the tasting. He couldn't have been more right, as we got a huge table outside and were brought bottle after bottle of some of Napa's best sparkling wine. I really, really want to call it champagne, because it sounds so much better, but the French would definitely not approve. We were happily imbibing in some of Domaine Chandon's best sparkling wines when my Matron of Honor's husband made another startling discovery on his cell phone; while we were currently sitting in perfect, 85-degree-and-sunny weather, there was a change in the weekend's forecast. Not only would the heat continue to climb, but there was an actual heat advisory for the day of our wedding. It was going to hit 105 degrees. Awesome. After a slight moment of panic and a quick email to our venue's wedding coordinator asking for parasols for the outside ceremony, all was right in the world again and we were back to enjoying our sparkling wine.
At around 5:30pm, Woody dropped us off back at the Villagio and helped distribute all of our wine purchases. We didn't let him leave before bestowing upon him a generous tip and a rousing standing ovation for his enthusiasm and expertise. He was one of the absolute highlights of our day; one we'll remember always.
Bryan and I parted ways with our friends and left to get ready for a dinner with my family. We made reservations at Bottega, Michael Chiarello's new restaurant on our hotel property. The restaurant, from a distance, overlooked our ceremony site so we were able to show my grandparents exactly where we would be getting married in less than 48 hours. Bryan had what he describes as "the best short ribs of my life" and I had a delicious whitefish. After three hours of fun stories and laughter, we were done with dinner, but not with the day. While my family left to go back to their rooms, our huge group of friends came from the other direction, full from their own incredible Yountville dinner. We reconvened back at my family's dinner table at Bottega and spent the next hour enjoying each other's company, great cocktails and reminiscing about our kick-ass wine tasting day.
All in all, it couldn't have been a better day with our friends and family. Oh, and Woody. Can't forget Woody.
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