[ wine country ]

It was wine country day with Charles. Despite having lived in the Bay Area for nearly 5 years, I'd never been wine tasting. And since my cold is still in full bloom, today was all about the sights instead of the flavors.

We've got a list -- recommended wineries from a friend of Charles. We're hip, young, what do they call us in that commercial? Generation D? Generation Digital? It may be true. We've got a system. I write down each winery along with phone number, address, and cost. All information is gleaned from NapaValley.com's list of featured wineries of their full diarectory. We're looking good. We've even got a saké brewery on the list.

Our list includes:

• Opus One

• Whitehall Lane

• Sterling

• Silverado

• Duckhorn Vineyards

• PlumpJack

• Niebaum-Coppola

• Mumm

• Hakusan

We map directions to the Napa Valley Visitors Bureau. The Charles spots the Napa Sonoma Wine Country Visitor Center which boasts of free maps for visitors. We're there!

The drive is easy. I am being a good navigaitress. We find the Visitor Center and discover we are the only people there. We obtain our free map, with each winery clearly marked. This is going to be easier than we thought. From the bottom of the map to the top is a 45 minute drive, and there are nearly a hundred wineries in between. I ask the guy at the Visitor Center to recommend one place for us to go. He says his favorite is Kenwood in Sonoma. He suggests a few we already have, such as Niebaum-Coppola. Then he selects Rombauer. He lets me know that he spent 7 years going to the over 900 wineries in California. "Kind of like climbing Everst, only less cold." I add, "And more tasty!" I thank him and we head to our first stop.

Hakusan

It is appropriate that we have saké first. For $2 per person, it's a fun experience, but I still prefer Takara.

The guy at the Visitor Center had said that after Opus One, everything else would be downhill, which is what you would expect from a wine that costs $25 to taste. That is where we headed next.

Opus One

Though we were not impressed by the overly pretentious outside, we loved the row upon row of heavily laden grape vines and the beautiful view from the quaint rooftop terrace.

Charles briefly called the friend who had given him the list to let him know that he was currently sipping some Opus One.

We decided to save Niebaum-Coppola for later, if we were "in the mood" and headed to Whitehall Lane, which Charles didn't like the looks of. He proclaimed that we had to stop at one winery which "called to us" and that was how we wound up at...

Freemark Abbey

At this time Charles realized I was going to take a picture of him in front of every winery and he began to get irritated.

Charles was not a big fan of this wine, but I got Matthew a jar of "Garlic Merlot" pasta sauce that I figured he'd be excited about. We quickly headed off to our most Northerly winery. "No dawdling!"

Sterling

Sterling is the winery you go to just so you can ride in the aerial tramway, and it is worth it just for that. You are greeted by a picture perfect tree lined drive.

Ever-helpful and friendly Barbara greeted us and posed with Charles.

In our tram car, Charles and I took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other.

Then we took cheesy pictures of ourselves with outstretched arms.

Here are some views from the tram car:

Sterling held so many delightful sights for me...

The signs pointed to Geyserville and suddenly we found ourselves headed to "Old Faithful" in Calistoga.

Old Faithful

The only disappointing part of our geyser adventure whas the sign pointing to "fainting goats". I wanted to see them, but we never located any fainting goats.

We were a bit overwhelmed by the cheesiness of it, but with only a thirteen minute interval between erruptions, how could we not see "Old Faithful" do its thing?

For some reason, they had an old funhouse mirror there, so I took a picture of myself reflected in it.

We decided to skip Mumm and Silverado, which only left three stops on our wild adventure.

Rombauer

At Rombauer I took two pictures of Charles, one before and one after. He loved the wine.

Niebaum-Coppola

Niebaum-Coppola was simply stunning. I'm so glad we stopped there. And I got another component of Matthew's anniversary present.

PlumpJack

PlumpJack was so nestled away it wasn't even on our map. It was a great finish to the day. We headed to Mustard's for a late lunch, but my camera ceased functioning when we got there, so I have no photo of that...

P.S.: Charles' entry is just as full of pictures of me as mine is of him...