I like beer

The Ink House

Pizzeria Tre Vigne

Grapevine at Charles Krug Winery

When you visit wine country, Napa Valley specifically, I think you are supposed to come away from there with memories of the taste of the wines you enjoyed and bottles of wine that you bought. You are supposed to rhapsodize about the oakiness or the lack of, or the bright tastes or the petulant aroma, or the musky flavors, aren't you? I guess we didn't do it right because our memories are going to be of three fellows we met or observed, not that much about the wine.

The first fellow was our host at the Ink House bed and breakfast that we chose over the internet. We chose the place because it was moderately priced and it had an interesting history and Trip Advisor commenters liked it. Our host wasn't there the first two nights--he was off installing his oldest daughter in her dorm for her first year of college. When he returned he was present during the "wine reception" that took place every late afternoon. While we munched on interesting cheeses, crackers and fruit and sipped or guzzled white and red wine, he answered our questions. And my question was, "Will you tell us the story of when Elvis Presley stayed in this house." His Elvis Slept Here story was long, detailed and scrumptious, better than the wine we'd been drinking. He had details nobody else would have had and you could tell he relished telling the story and had done research to make it better. He hadn't been present in 1961 when El and his co-stars Tuesday Weld and Hope Lang stayed in the house during the filming of Wild In The Country, but he might as well have been, he knew so much about it. He told us how the actors had started out staying in the town of Napa but that it had caused such a ruckus that they moved out to the more remote house in St. Helena in order to be able to control the crowds. The production company proclaimed that Elvis would sign autographs for 2 hours each afternoon, on the front porch of the house, and the girls lines up for miles hours before the signing began. He told us lots more, too much to relate here and he enjoyed every minute of his story. He also gave us great tips to get around the wine tasting fees that every winery but one assessed and he gave us glimpses into the history of the area. I'm sure he could have talked for hours, but we had dinners to go to and he had computer work to do.

Our second character sighting was at dinner at the Pizzeria Tre Vigne. While Michael and I sat on the patio, slurped up spaghetti marinara and heirloom tomato salad and we dunked french bread into olive oil with a puddle of balsamic vinegar in the bottom of it, we observed what we came to call The Affluent Family, sitting near us. There were two families, each with two children. The children ranged in age from about 3 years old to 6 years old. Without exception the children were out of control, but perhaps their parents saw them as free spirits. They were crawling under the table (not an unusual sight--I've seen this before), they were running back and forth among the tables and the 6 year old little girl was eating salt out of the salt shakers from empty tables. It make me very leery of using our salt, let me tell you. One of their parents would scowl occasionally and ask the children to stop doing whatever they were presently doing, but then turn away and resume their adult conversations while the children continued to do whatever they were presently doing. At one point, I heard one of the mothers say to one of the little boys, "If you do that again, it's over." Exactly what would be over we never found out because the little boy continued to do what he was doing and the threat was never executed. The fellow I will remember in connection to these wild children was a man who reminded me of Ted Danson, tall, lithe, white haired, nice hair cut, but young looking, white golf shirt with turned up collar, khaki shorts, loafers with no socks, expensive watch--he had the air of someone with quite a bit of money. They were regulars, the servers knew them and probably were very used to seeing the unruly children running about. I hope they were good tippers. After we got in our car and were leaving, we saw one of the little boys far away from the patio of the restaurant and we considered picking him up and depositing him down the street a couple of blocks to see if his parents noticed, but we decided against it.

Last, but certainly not least in our memories of Wine Country, will be The Wine Snob. I'm so glad we had one, because our stories of this trip wouldn't be nearly as good without him. He was staying at the Ink House, too. He made it very clear early on that he knew his wines. He would start a sentence with, "Do you like Pinots?" and then launch into directions as to where to find the best ones. He was a young fellow, younger than most wine snobs I've met, probably in his mid-forties. He had a very nice, regular wife who worked for the state in their native Michigan. I think it was his Detroit accent that made the snobby comments even better, because when he said things like Cabernet or Pinot it was said with that thing that Detroitians do to their vowels that is so distinctive and so NOT snobby sounding. At breakfast one morning we were all talking about where we'd been the day before, the photo gallery at Mumm's, looking at the art at Peju, the lunch at V. Sattui's picnic area--and he just had to say, "I'm here for the wines." As it turned out, he certainly was serious--he had been to the Ink House five times and each time he came he bought 5 or 6 cases of wine and had them shipped home. My favorite remark of his, the one that nearly put me under the breakfast table was, "And then we had to relax our palates...". I love accents and I would have loved to talk to him some more so that I could have really absorbed his Detroit accent and gotten some more snobby quotes from him. I am afraid I egged him on a little, just to hear more.

In addition to the characters we discovered, we also discovered that we are not really wine connoisseurs . We don't have the sophisticated palates required to know the subtle differences between one Pinot or Merlot and another. They either taste good or they don't. There was one wine that instantly made my nose itch--I knew I'd not want to drink that one again! We didn't taste that many, partly due to the fees charged at each winery for tastings, but also because we weren't that interested. Twice we had beer with our dinners rather than wine. We bought only one bottle, at a winery that offered free tasting. I find that I have a refined beer sensibility instead. I know the differences between a Hefaweisen and a Porter, and regular ale or a pale ale. I don't yet know much about "hoppiness" but I am dying to learn. Too bad we don't have more local breweries around, so that there could be "brewiery tours" like the wine tours. I'd be signing up.

We'll have good memories of Napa Valley but they won't be about the wine. I have to go relax my palate now.