One can’t go to Napa without tasting a bit of Thomas Keller’s cooking. Because Graham deemed French Laundry out of the question, we satisfied our appetites with coffee and chocolate almond croissants at the more affordable Bouchon Bakery. The pastries were top notch and I’d be willing to wager they were the best I’ve tasted since, well, France.
Today’s agenda began with a FREE tour at Mumm, a producer of sparkling wines. We got to get in the vineyard and taste all sorts of grape varietals. I always thought wine grapes tasted bad but when allowed to ripen, they are really sweet!
By the way, it’s COLD in northern California in the morning!! I did not quite pack for the early morning chill but thankfully the weather warmed by mid-morning and – perfectly timed with the end of our tour. We had a 2 for 1 coupon for a flute of bubbly which we sipped on the outdoor patio overlooking the valley. Gorgeous! My cuvee hit the spot and Graham liked his drier brute as well. One of the servers overheard us talking about sparkling reds and asked if we wanted to try a “sample” which turned out to be almost two more flutes full – for free!
As an aside, sparkling wines are delicious! And the sparkling reds supposedly are perfect for Thanksgiving dinner. Which got me thinking….I can’t wait until the day we can host the Thanksgiving meal! But I digress…
Next stop: Cakebread Cellars (weird name) where we enjoyed yet another tour with tastings that was quite informative. After picnicking at V. Suttai, we went back to our hotel for some sun and pool.
Dinner that evening was interesting, to say the least! We had reservations at Bottega (a James Beard award finalist) in downtown Yountville. We checked in, commenting that the restaurant was rather dimly lit but chalked it up to “mood lighting.” It wasn’t until we saw that the chefs were walking around the kitchen with flashlights that we realized something was up. Apparently the power had gone out in the entire town of Yountville for no apparent reason. The staff ushered us to the waiting area and gave us water, promising to alert us as soon as they knew anything. Eventually they told us that they would be working off a “limited menu” (read: only items from the grill) but we could be seated now if we chose to stay. We debated briefly as I had my heart set on pasta but decided to stay as the other restaurants in town were likely operating under the same circumstances.
We settled at our table and ordered a salad, planning to eat slowly and draw out our meals as long as possible in hopes that the power would return (and I could have pasta!!!) But then we learned that the grill in the back had just caught fire and no other items would be leaving the kitchen. Hmmmm. Plan fail. We munched on cold bread when all of a sudden, the lights flicks on and there was much cheering and happiness again in the dining room. Graham ended up ordering the special – duck ravioli in game broth – which was good but mine was the one worth writing home about! I ordered beet and robiola ravioli with a beet brown butter and broken beet vinaigrette. It was both beautiful and delicious and I recommended to the waiter that they bottle up that delectable sauce and start selling it for top dollar (if they weren’t doing that already). Of course, that was only after I guarded my plate from every busser until I was given more bread to sop up every last drop of it… So. Good.
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