Things I Think I Thought from a recent Napa Valley Trip

[blarmston]

In-n-Out is okay, but I would put my money on a piping hot Shake Shack any day of the week…

[cherylfoil]

8. If you’re traveling with another couple on their first Napa trip, don’t knock it out of the park on Day 1, it sets high expectations and a bad precedent!
9. It turns out I love BS’ing as much as I do drinking wine—explains why we were late everywhere.

I want to hope we are part of point 8, but I am certain we contributed to point 9.

[MICHAEL_C_R_O_M_W_E_L_L]

8. If you’re traveling with another couple on their first Napa trip, don’t knock it out of the park on Day 1, it sets high expectations and a bad precedent!
9. It turns out I love BS’ing as much as I do drinking wine—explains why we were late everywhere.

I want to hope we are part of point 8, but I am certain we contributed to point 9.

Cheryl: You and Khristopher were indeed part of the cause of 8 and a contributor to 9.

Shoutout to you both—folks, get over to Elyse and check out the happenings, oh and the wine is fabulous too!

Lest I forget the Elyse Bonus—#10 is not a problem if you’re staying in Yountville

[David_Baum]

In-n-Out is okay, but I would put my money on a piping hot Shake Shack any day of the week…

Opening up later this year a mile from my house and a few doors down from my local wine bar/shop. And I beleive they are corkage friendly

Napa isnt that tough to navigate. Hit the mountain wineries in the a.m so you arent dealing with traffic and drunks on the mountain roads. Avoid the St Helena bottleneck mid day. Use Silverado Trail and cross roads liberally. Only a fool would plan on driving south on the 29 late afternoon

[J_a_y_H_a_c_k]

Homemade with local beef (no pre-made patties, even from a local source!) beats any chain, any time.

Flannery Adventurous Blend has spoiled me for good. Anything else is mere ground beef.

I get ground ribeye from a local farm. Maybe do a compare someday.

How lazy can a person be? Grind your own! Get the grinder attachment to the KitchenAid mixer, season the beef FIRST, then grind once, maybe grind all or half of it a second time depending on your personal preference. Adjust fat content based upon personal preference. Add specialty items (BACON!) before grinding if you want.

[J_a_y_H_a_c_k]

By the way - For the New Yorkers who have travelled to Napa recently. Do they know what a traffic jam really is? How does it compare to the Cross Bronx mid-day? Is it a real traffic jam or just a safety device to force the drunks to drive slowly. My last two trips were in December and late May, so I had no issues.

[David_Bu3ker]

Flannery Adventurous Blend has spoiled me for good. Anything else is mere ground beef.

I get ground ribeye from a local farm. Maybe do a compare someday.

How lazy can a person be? Grind your own! Get the grinder attachment to the KitchenAid mixer, season the beef FIRST, then grind once, maybe grind all or half of it a second time depending on your personal preference. Adjust fat content based upon personal preference. Add specialty items (BACON!) before grinding if you want.

First of all Jay, I know how to make a burger. Thanks for being condescending though. You should hang out with Howard.

[Howard_Cooper]

8. If you’re traveling with another couple on their first Napa trip, don’t knock it out of the park on Day 1, it sets high expectations and a bad precedent!

1. Where did you go the first day?

2. Go to Stony Hill the second day. Even if someone does not like the wines (not sure why that would be), the views are to kill for.

[HoosJustinG]

Just want to echo how ridiculously bad the travel situation is in airports. Did every airline and every vendor inside the airport hire entirely new staff post-Covid? How does nobody remember how to do anything and WHY are 75%+ of airport businesses still closed in Atlanta (or closed after 6pm, on weekends, etc)?

I do think a big problem is that “travel” is back but business travel isn’t … so you have a bunch of 1-2x/year travelers who don’t know what the hell they’re doing. I’ve flown the last 4 weeks and I don’t remember ever being so miserable … maybe I’ve just gone soft?

[Brian_Glas]

#15 - Skip California all together next time and fly into Pasco/Tri Cities and go to Walla Walla.

[Mike_Grammer]

Nice thoughts, but…a burger is still a burger, and anything involving them is such a low bar.

Now those are real fightin’ words!

There are only two sides and no neutrality in this dumb fight!

Homemade with local beef (no pre-made patties, even from a local source!) beats any chain, any time.

Yup (sorry to perpetuate a bit of tangent-drift here). Come up here and I’ll make you one of mine–with cajun spice, saffron, bourbon, truffle oil and za’atar, and some lamb/veal ground beef mixed in. I love burgers if done well.

Very fun report/summary, Michael, thanks for sharing.

[ATaylor]

Up here for the weekend to do my mom’s 85th and Father’s Day for my dad. Drove in late afternoon and downtown was a zoo. Sitting in my sister’s bagel/coffee shop this morning munching on a breakfast burrito and they are just slammed!!! They have had their shop 25 yrs and I have never seen it like this. Drop in tastings are going to be a thing of the past all summer.

Whataburger? My cousin in Ft Worth has dragged me there on multiple occasions. Awful and not even close to In-n-Out……but then nothing compares to Flannery blends

[MICHAEL_C_R_O_M_W_E_L_L]

8. If you’re traveling with another couple on their first Napa trip, don’t knock it out of the park on Day 1, it sets high expectations and a bad precedent!

1. Where did you go the first day?

2. Go to Stony Hill the second day. Even if someone does not like the wines (not sure why that would be), the views are to kill for.

Day 1 was Elyse and then dinner with Shae Kinsman.

Will add Stony Hill to the list of potential future visits. Thanks for the rec.

[Michael_Sterling]

3. Secret menu at In-n-Out? Where the hell have I been? Still, Whataburger beats In-n-Out hands down.

I’m not from Texas but this is absolutely true and it’s not even close. In fact, Whataburger beats out a heckuva lot of places that it shouldn’t. Damn good burger

[jmcollins]

1. The whole damned world forgot how to travel and get through an airport. To make it worse, the airports aren’t really ready just yet.
2. For the first time ever, I made it onto the rental car bus at Sacramento without a 30 minute wait.
3. Secret menu at In-n-Out? Where the hell have I been? Still, Whataburger beats In-n-Out hands down.
4. I’ve always wanted to visit Napa in winter. This year I did it in June.
5. Uber needs to up its game after 8 pm in the valley—the people need to get home after dinner! Thanks Lyft!
6. Congratulations to Napa hospitality—hear you are booked full for the most part through October.
7. I thought I would miss ‘drop in’ tastings. I did not — my liver and kidneys were appreciative.
8. If you’re traveling with another couple on their first Napa trip, don’t knock it out of the park on Day 1, it sets high expectations and a bad precedent!
9. It turns out I love BS’ing as much as I do drinking wine—explains why we were late everywhere.
10. 29 traffic on Thursday was unbearable, Friday and Saturday were worse.
11. For those of you heading out to Napa, book early as possible and be patient, there is a labor shortage and the tourist machine is not yet running completely efficiently.
12. There were more people bottling 2020s than I would have thought, I guess not all is lost.
13. Many places are spacing out normal 2021 timeframe releases into 2022 to help bridge the lack of 2020s.

And finally, epic trips are made so primarily by the people who took time out of their busy schedules to host us (you know who you are) and augmented, only in part, by some great wines!

1. As mentioned, lots of non business people traveling, and it is challenging. We have flown twice in the last month and all I can say is it is messy right now.

2. If you are coming from outside of California, Sacramento is a good airport to fly into for Napa, if you time it right, traffic is still low enough that SFO and OAK work well these days. Also SJC (San Jose) isn’t terrible as you can drive up 680 and typically make it to downtown Napa in about 75 minutes from SJC. Rentals cars are walkable from SJC terminals so could make a timing difference.

3. Never had a Whatsaburger…

4. This summer in Napa is INSANE. It is a bit better during the week, but the weekends are basically sold out . Rooms are hard to find most weekends now through end of Sept, and the prices are crazy. Given that we are “local” right now it is cheaper to just take a car service/Uber from San Jose to/from Napa then it is to rent a room for the night. We typically don’t go up during the summer except for “events” so we may stay a night or we may drive back same day like we are doing next weekend. Most of the time we go up is after Harvest through April. March is an awesome time to go as the weather is usually reasonable but not crazy hot and it isn’t packed.

5. Both Uber/Lyft are problematic right now nationwide, but definitely in places like Napa. They weren’t that great before the pandemic in Napa, and now it is pretty bad.

6. See 4

7. My tasting preferences have evolved over the years. I used to be the walk in, belly up to the bar, do the 4 or 5 pours, maybe buy some wines, etc, and do that at 4 or 5 places in a day. Now we almost only do reservations (even pre-pandemic, now it is just reservations), typically a mix of places we know and places we want to try and go more for the experience, the ability to talk with knowledgable staff, sometimes the winemaker, for some places the owner. We treat it as an experience. Napa is a very diverse region, there are still places like Tres Sabores where I tasted in the Owner’s kitchen to places like Opus One or Darioush which feel crazy impersonal and very over priced/not worth it. There is quite a bit in between (there are over 600 bonded wineries in Napa). What I have found is that I can taste (not drink) but taste about 28-32 wines in a day, but I try to really limit it to about 20-22 as palate fatigue sets in for me usually after about 21/22 wines. I am a dumper when tasting, and sometimes a spitter if I am driving. I have also found the more I taste in Napa and the more I get to know people and the trade and etc… that even if I am going somewhere that has 4-5 wines to taste in a reservation scheduled tasting, that it is rare that more wine doesn’t appear and I often find that we taste 8, 9, 10 different wines in some places.

8-13. All Good points.

[Nate_Simon]

Two things:

1. The only thing more over-hyped than the wedding night is In-N-Out.
2. Next time, make a left instead of a right out of SMF and hit the Sierra Foothills and Lodi.