St Helena and Napa Valley

St Helena and Napa Valley

Again we had a beautiful drive from the Ranch in Willits right down into St Helena.  The weather was not really cooperating. No monsoons, just plain old rain that we get at home.  The road we took to get to the Sonoma and Napa Valley’s was a beautiful but narrow road.  It twisted like a snake through hundreds of vineyards.  Som of the vines were old and gnarly looking and the leaves were green and yellow.  There are 416 vineyards on 6800 acres throughout the “city”.  Beringer Vineyard and the Charles Krug Winery are both known as .California Historical Landmarks.  Some of the major employers of this beautiful little city are the St Helena Hospital, The Culinary Institute of America and the Trinchero Family Estates which is Sutter Home Winery and is one of the largest family run independent wineries in the United States.   As you arrive in St Helene you drive right past a beautiful stone building which is the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.  Beautiful building with finely manicured grounds.  The quaint downtown section offers something for everyone.  From clothing and home deco shops, wine tasting, restaurants, art galleries etc.  You can drive to any of the wineries, or you can take the restored Napa Valley Wine train which tours from Napa to St Helena.  

Having decided to come back the next day and browse around and taste some liquid grapes, We headed down to Napa.  Our important job of the day was to find camping.  Any campgrounds in the area, whether private or State Parks are most often full as so many come to this valley to do wine tours. To top that off, there was also a PGA golf tour in the area.  I had searched every town around Napa for a spot for us, everyone was fully reserved.  When we gassed up, the very nice clerk in the gas station suggested we try Skyline Park.  The directions were quite simple and we were able to find the park with little difficulty.   Skyline Park, is like the Ag Rec Centre in Abbotsford.  There were a couple of  horse barns at one end of the park and a very small campground with electrical and water hook ups at the other end.  There was also a very large field where cars, trucks with horse trailers can park overnight.  Once again we were ending up in a field for the night.  Dry camping. It would not have been so bad but it was still raining and the field was like straw with mud!  We had no choice but to suck it up.  It was either that or go to the Walmart to camp for the night.  Once we had the trailers sorted out we got back into the truck to look for a vineyard and start our tasting!  First off we stopped at Trader Joes for some groceries.  It was a mad house in there!  It is the busiest Trader Joe’s I have been too.  We also bought some “Two Buck Chuck” because we wanted to do a taste test……….hey why not.  Buy a bottle of Charles Shaw and a bottle of Raymond and see which tastes the best!  We asked a woman in the parking lot if she could direct us towards the wineries.  She said she really didn’t know where they all were as she was a local and they don’t do the wineries!!  Say what?????   She did finally direct us to Domaine Carneros.  When we arrived there is was like a palace!  A grand stairway sweeping from the parking lot, up to the winery.  What we didn’t know was that in order to taste their wines, you needed to book a time.  You can’t just walk in like you can at Domaine de Chaberton!   Needless to say we didn’t do any wine tasting.

Find Goober?

Driving back to the campsite I gave Ray quite a fright.  He was maneuvering though traffic as it was “rush hour”, when all of a sudden I yelled “oh my god,,,,,look over there”!!! Ray had no idea why I was “yelling”,,,he swerved the truck,,,,,,and didn’t even hit anyone,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but what I saw was an “In and Out” burger joint!!!  It was the first one that I had seen in a couple of years!!!!   I think he would have killed me if he could have…… 

After a rainy night, the sun showed us its sunny face in the morning.  We headed back up to St Helena to find some wineries. In particular we were looking for Rutherford and Raymond vineyards as Ray and I had been to both in the past.  Before the wineries though, we walked up and down the main street of St Helena visiting their shops.  Eventually we made our way to Raymond Winery.  Once again as we walked in they asked if we had reservations, which of course we did not.  I said we just wanted to buy some wine.  We went into the tasting room and were told that it was a $25 fee to taste, and if we bought 3 bottles of wine and joined their wine club they would waive the tasting fee.  Being in the wine club means they will ship you wine every three months. But,,,,they do not of course ship to Canada.  The lovely young lady waived the fee and let us taste some wine!  We drove to Rutherford Vineyard and ran into the same issue with having to make an appointment to taste the wines.  About this time Mr Riggins had had enough!!!  We went back to our campsite and after moving to one of the sites with some hook ups, we bar-b-qued some steaks for dinner.  Well I should say “Ray” bar-b-qued some steaks in the pouring rain!!