Napa

This will be an almost cycling free post. My 40th birthday came and my wonderful wife took me on a trip to the Napa/Sonoma valleys. I knew Santa Rosa was Levi's home town and that the Tour of California came right through there recently, so there must be some good riding. On the other hand, Kim has been looking forward to some together without the kids time, and the prospect of lazy mornings with coffee, croissants, and morning.... ok, moving on... well that was alluring as well. In the end I decided to forget about cycling and just enjoy the time.

It was the right decision, although if we ever go back, the DeRosa is coming too! Lots of great roads especially as you get into the far north of the valleys. The southern ends are just too congested. Trinity road is the route of the ToC which goes from the sonoma side over the Mayacamas range to the Napa side. This is a testing climb, about 3-4 miles at 9% ave grade. We drove over it too many times, as our inn was on the Sonoma side very near its base.

Obviously the reason people go to this place is the wine and food. We were not dissapointed in either regard, although my bank account is feeling a bit bruised. Wineries we went to included Silver Oak, Opus One, Duckhorn, Rombauer, Stags Leap, Far Niente. I have very fond memories of Stags Leap from the Annie Gunn's dinner in 2005. Stocked up on Silver Oak and Opus One! I am considering getting on the list for Stags Leap, but its a fair amount of money and I don't know if I want to put all my eggs in one basket. I won't bore anyone with tasting notes, I'll just say it was all good.

The markets around the valleys are incredible. Forget about restaurant lunches, just head down to the Oakville Market in Oakville or Dean and Deluca in St. Helena. Breads, cheeses, pates, caviar, desserts. Just incredible. Then go to the fancy schmanzy places for dinner. I toyed with the idea of getting a reservation at French Laundry, but decided against it in the end. You need to be very aggressive in calling the moment the reservation line opens exactly 30 days prior to your desired reservation and then waiting on hold forever. Dinner is $210/person not including wine or tax/gratuity, so you're looking at around $1300-1400 for a party of four depending on how much you spend on wine. We were travelling with Kim's sister and her husband. They don't have that kind of change and I'm not ready to pay for all four.

We ended up going to two fantastic restaurants. The first, Cyrus in Healdsburg turned out to be much more upscale than we had anticipated. We could have easily spent as much there as at French Laundry. The food was very progressive with an emphasis on the emerging trend of molecular gastronomy. Lots of foams, infusions, essences and very unusual combinations of tastes. The highlight of the evening was a tie between the presentation of the shaved black truffles and watching the lesbian couple make out in the corner booth.

The very next night we went to La Toque in Rutherford. Equally fantastic food, totally different atmosphere. Very french country and rustic. Dishes were classic french, more simply presented, with just extraordinary emphasis on freshness and technique. Kim and Coray did not like the whole Japanese firefly squid served with their salad, but I was more than willing to pop them down the hatch. The highlight of this evening was the sommelier Scott Tracy who is a man in love with his job. He personally presented every bottle to us, tenderly cradling them like his own children, and offering a short story behind every one. The sommelier at Cyrus had pretty much lost interest in us after we ordered the wine pairings for the tasting menu and not the $3000 bottle of Screaming Eagle.

It was a marvelous week. My riding will suffer for a time, but everyone came back happy and the marriage was recharged. That's good for a one track mind guy like me.