wine cellar
Napa Revisited
20 Years Later
by Kim Clarke
f you’re a wine person and have been fortunate enough to
make a pilgrimage to Napa, chances are you remember all
the wineries you visited, all the restaurants where you dined
and lots of other minute wine-related details about the trip that
would count for very little among non-wine persons. It’s certainly that way for me. My wife and I were in Napa 20 years ago
and I have many memories, mainly fond ones, of the trip.
Unfortunately, one of those memories includes a smelly ride
home from DFW airport when it was a hundred degrees outside
in a cab that had no air conditioning. But despite the bad ending, I’ve always wanted to go back and recently managed to pull
a trip together for our family. Our kids are all of age and I
thought some focus on the quality of wine might begin to
replace a youthful focus on the quantity of wine. A good friend
of mine in the wine business helped plan the trip and we are
certainly grateful for his help.
I
One fun thing I remember about the trip 20 years ago is the
number of wineries I recognized as we wound our way up the
Silverado Trail on the east side of the valley and down Highway
29 as it ran through Calistoga, St. Helena, Rutherford, Oakville
and Yountville. If you hadn’t had a bottle of wine from each of
these wineries you probably wish you had as these are some of
the top producers in the California wine business.
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