Post Mortem on the James Bond Weekend.

Another James Bond weekend summed up in one word: Fantastic.

We had dinner at one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants, Rue St. Jacques on Friday evening and opened up a magnum of 2001 Trefethen Cabernet to share with the wait staff, as it is now become our tradition to bring them wine. The Muppet is fond of his French wines, so getting a bunch of Frenchmen who know their wines very, very well, to sip and enjoy a Napa wine built in a very French way was fun for us both. As usual, the cuisine there was top notch. I have never had even so much as a mediocre meal there - the chef works with organic and fresh ingredients, and everything melts in your mouth.

Saturday we took the Aston Martin to Domaine Carneros (by way of Telfords for some Monte Cristos, as they have a very wide selection of my favorite cigars there...and the ever irresistible In-N-Out Burger. I must admit, we did get a few looks pulling into the parking lot in that car) to pick up some of their Ultra Brut, which they keep to wine club member release only - but if you can get your hands on a bottle, I highly recommend it for an affordable, light, crisp champagne. We typically compare it to the Late Disgorged.

We snapped a few photos there before moving on to Trefethen (upon arriving though, we realized the shipment wouldn't be ready until the end of the month, unfortunately). From there we went to St. Supery, and picked up my Oak Free Chardonnay and the new Elu release. We also got the deal of a lifetime on a case of the 2001 Merlot - which many of you who frequent my parlour will be privy to tasting shortly. I try to get some of this whenever its accessible - sometimes they have it, sometimes they do not. We scored on this trip. Totally.

We decided to stop in to The Rubicon Estate to have a cigar take in the new view, after they demolished the second storage building blocking the view of the vines on to the main road. The Muppet scored me the coveted orange from the Great Lemorange tree...my life is now complete.

After that it was off to the Glen Ellen Inn which is an Oyster Bar and Grille that has these "Secret Cottages" you can reserve...I found the B&B online when I was running a search on Sonoma. Our criteria is always that a place have a restaurant so we can park the car and just walk everywhere else (ie., no drinking and driving!). The little cottage we had was perfectly situated just off a lovely creek with a stone bridge, where we could hear the water just outside the window, gently going by. There was a fireplace, a hot tub - pretty much all the things you could want - all nestled in a sleepy little town off the beaten path.

Dinner at the Inn was fantastic as well - I knew when I tasted his sweet biscuits disguised as little scones that it was all gonna be good. I had a stewed lamb shank with polenta, oysters on the half shell with some good old fashioned southern influence in the sauces (not your run of the mill garlic and white wine vinegar/ginger dip), and we tapped into that Elu for the feast. All was well in Hoosville.

The next day we set out for Sonoma with the intention of antiquing in Healdsburg, however, there is no good way to get from Glen Ellen to Healdsburg so we sort of winged it, stopping in at Chateau St. Jean to sample the Malbec release (yes, it even impressed my Malbec snobbery - but it's still on the light side and reminds me very much more of a pinot noir. The fruit you taste for mere moments in the beginning *could* pass for a traditional Argentine Malbec, however). We noticed a vineyard that the Muppet recalled his former boss had taken over - so we headed on up and up and up north to visit Quivira. They were doing a barrel tasting of a few Zinfandels, which was quite tasty. We chatted a bit with Steven Canter, the winemaker, and I learned a lot about the difference between "head-trained" vines and the t-shape you normally see...how the newly implemented biodynamic farming got rid of a Floxera infestation that nearly saw them pulling up one section of old vines...instead, it has vanished and that crop was saved as a result of the new practice.

We *had* stopped in Healdsburg for burgers on the way, but were too tired to contemplate antiques by the time we finished up north, so back to San Francisco we drove...top down, enjoying life.

...And life *is* good.

Labels: cigars, food, lemorange, napa, sonoma, wine

posted by Rain at 4:52 PM