eat+drink's very first, official trip to Napa! I say "official" because I've been visiting Northern California, Napa and Sonoma for the past 20 years and finally some people have found out about my secret trips. This adventurous group of 10 wine-loving souls tagged along with me for three days of eating and drinking over a glorious weekend in January.
January, you say? Yes, January. January happens to have a three day weekend - Martin Luther King Jr weekend - and no one wants to go traipsing through vineyards in the winter so i get the place pretty much all to myself. I love it. We visited some wineries I knew well and others that were completely new to us. The focus of this trip was smaller, family-run wineries, spending time in the vineyard and winemakers on the cutting edge of breaking out. We had a great time and can't wait for next year!
Buccella
Buccella was our first visit on Saturday morning. This was probably our "fanciest" wine tasting because we were in Buccella's new tasting room and they created a great pairing accompaniment for us. "We chose the name Buccella, which means “mouthful” in Latin, to evoke the big, bold, concentrated layers that make our wines so luxuriously flavorful." And yes, these wines are bold. I love them so much I'm willing to shell out some serious $$ to get them. Bill and Alicia started Buccella over a first date and a bottle of wine - it doesn't get much better than that!