In 2003, my husband Bill was contacted by a recruiter who had a Managing Consultant position available at a small construction consulting firm. When Bill came out to Sacramento to interview for the position, I came with him. I had friends whom I met while working for GE in Overland Park, KS, and these friends had moved to Napa in 2003 (or thereabouts, it's a bit hazy now!) After the interviews, we caught up with Heather and Paul and their children, and went for a drive through Napa.
One of the first places we stopped was the Oakville Market, a charming, tiny, market on Highway 29, the main road through Napa wine country. The place is a gormand's delight, nothing sold there would be found in a supermarket. The market sells everything from cheeses to bread to meats and fish, and all the condiments necessary to turn those ingredients into a heavenly meal that should be accompanied by an equally special wine. I'm not sure what we bought; my overriding memory is that Heather and Paul's oldest lost his stuffed owl in the market and we spent a good 30 minutes looking for it without success. For the boy, the day was ruined...he wasn't going to drink any wine, he didn't like the looks of the food we were buying, and his best friend was gone. It was a tragedy...for him, anyway.
Heather and Paul had a destination in mind, a destination with wines as special as all the wonderful food: V. Sattui Winery. Never heard of it? Unless you've been to Napa, you have no reason to have heard of it. The winery does not sell its wines to any distributor, you can only buy them at the winery or at their website (listed in my main page links.) The winery has charming old stone buildings and enormous, aged live oak trees, and a wonderful if small picnic area from which you can view the picturesque grounds. Unfortunately, it suffers from its exclusivity - everyone wants to stop there for a picnic, so competition for parking and picnic tables is always high. Heather and I managed to secure a table, though, by sending the kids running to the first one that opened up; the guys went into the winery to purchase wine and drinks for the kids.
Our experience was nearly ruined, though, when a winery employee approached us as we began unpacking our food. Turns out the winery has its own deli and does not allow food to be brought onto the grounds. Fortunately for me, Heather is a tall, gorgeous blonde with a sweet, innocent face, and she managed to convince the employee to let our food stay. He did ask us to hide the bags and of course we obliged. Next life, I'm coming back as a tall, gorgeous blonde instead of a nerdy, average brunette. Sigh.
Paul and Bill brought out several bottles of wine and something for the kids - couldn't say, didn't care what the kids got. We opened two bottles of wine, a Suzanne's Vineyard Cabernet is what I recall drinking that day. Full-bodied, with a wonderful smooth finish, the wine was rich with plum, dried cherry, leather and oak, and was perfectly aged. We've bought several different vintages of this wine since that day and never been disappointed.
V. Sattui was the perfect destination and a wonderful introduction to the charms of Napa, crowds and winery restrictions not withstanding. We have returned many times since then, sometimes with out-of-town guests, sometimes on our own, and it remains to this day one of our favorite wineries. Although we did not taste wines on that day, on subsequent visits we did - and were all the happier and richer for those visits.
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