Washington Squared

Napa. Yeah, we’ve been there, both literally and figuratively. But it’s always best when you get a treat.

Kathy and I are now members of the Hess wine club, based on the fact that they have a line stringing to Frank Evangelho vineyard stretching to our CoCo ‘hood.

That was the impetus for our jaunt this weekend to the Napa Valley. It’s a different kind of “weird’ for us. We’ve lately steered clear; a tasting room may be open, but at what cost for said tasting?

We were armed with a bit of 2-for-1 Internet scrip, but were still skeptically inquiring (props to The Amazing Randi).

Funny how the first blush of romance gives way to mere tolerance, eh? As members of Hess, we can taste, tour and traverse the art gallery that Donald Hess has put on permanent display.

That was Kathy’s plan: Mourvèdre, Carignane, Stella, Rauschenberg. At the least, two of them are grape varieties.

We love the experience at Hess, but this time, befitting my comment a couple of lines ago, we wished that we had settled in a different location along the tasting bar. Did I ever mention our diss up in Washington state? Man, we had just endured the hammer to join this particular wine club when, on our next visit AS MEMBERS! were made eye-contact with, and professionally ignored. The pourers obviously had their “section” and even when someone on adjoining real estate had an empty glass, not only could the pourer not cross that imaginary line, they had to avert their gaze to deny your existence.

That really happened to Kath and me at a relatively newly built, well-reviewed winery in Woodinville (And based on his fawning reviews for this joint, Harvey Steiman from Wine Spectator apparently gets the VIP treatment at this winery: no stinking tasting bar for him).

OK, so it was a bit disconcerting at Hess to not get the pourer that you see on the other side. Ad nauseum, I say that, the person behind the stick determines whether or not that is YOUR winery. But hey, tasting was free. And the burning typewriter up in the gallery was still consuming that QWERTY vibe. And probably making Pacific Gas & Electric a packet.

We soon hooked up with our cool pourer, Kerry, at Cornerstone and Steppingstone Cellars on Washington Street in beautiful, bountiful downtown Yountville. We’ve written about Washington Street before, having redeemed an Internet coupon chez Cornerstone last fall. But I have to say that this little avenue is no secret to wine limousines. Of course, The French Laundry, Bouchon and Bistro Jeanty might have something to do with that. Never mind that there are something like 10+ tasting rooms within the 3-block downtown.

Kath and I were, uncharacteristically, heading north in the Napa Valley. We had a coupon for Girard (more in a sec) situated just before our turn back onto the 29 main drag. But, as many cool tasting room folk do, Kerry asked where we were heading next; we mentioned Girard up the street, and she told us about Beau Vigne directly behind them.

Beau Vigne’s wines were superb. Oscar was pouring four selections from their small production, but I wonder if it was Kerry’s biz card that allowed us to escape the $20 (that’s why we’re afraid of Napa!) tasting fee. As it was, we loved a $55 Chardonnay; can you imagine being levied a $20 tasting fee atop, even if you bought? That’s what scares us Napa v. Sonoma.

So we mosey and meander (I the latter, Kath the former) to the street front tasting room of Girard. Now, most of the guides, maps and other wine lit say that Girard is Appointment Only. I had phoned the day before, and Kevin told me that they are indeed open and that “we’ll see you tomorrow.” Sweetness. We walk in the next day, and would you believe it, Kevin turns out to be the first staffer we meet.

Dig this, y’all: It’s the day before Easter, an early April Saturday in Napa Valley’s Yountville, CA; Kathy and I are sitting outside a winery tasting room under a sunny, cloudless sky. We are watching limos, bicyclists and other tasters in our same periphery. All on one little street. We’re tasting a delicate Chard, a restrained Sauv Blanc, before moving on to the reds. But, let me get to punchline first: We had a 2-for-1 printout, but were not charged for the “1” part. In fact, we were poured a couple of selections off the list. Lovin’ it!

“Awesome” is a crazy word that gets bandied about, but when you taste a wine that embodies the root word, “awe,” you think about that stuff. For me, I’ve long had a beef with the term “field blend” ascribed to a wine whose label explains the exact percentages of each grape variety. Hello? The very nature of a field blend is that you don’t know how much of anything is in the mix: You picked the ripe stuff that was in the field, and then you made wine from it.

Welcome to Girard’s “Mixed Blacks.” It’s a deliciously funky-fresh amalgam of 100-year+ Napa Valley vine produce comprising Zin, Syrah, Petite, Grenache and a couple of strains that even University of Cali at Davis couldn’t pinpoint.

Field. Blend.

Does it get any closer to the Valley than this?