{"id":145,"date":"2009-02-09T03:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2009-02-09T03:15:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T03:15:00","slug":"go-east-young-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Go East, Young Man!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Is there a substantive difference between Napa and Sonoma or are they merely two faces of the same coin? Your West Coast Oenophile<\/span> does not engage in the San Francisco vs. Los Angeles dichotomy nor harbor any desire to plunge into this debate.\u00a0Sostevinobile<\/span>\u00a0strives to be inclusive for all the wines that meet a sustainable threshold while exemplifying the highest standards of winemaking. To paraphrase Charlie the Tuna<\/a><\/span>, we seek wines that taste good (<\/span>and<\/span><\/span> with good taste)<\/span>.<\/span><\/div>\n
Nonetheless, there is a physical demarcation between these two premier winegrowing counties, so I headed east across the border for the second day of my wine swing. The powers that be were not about to underwrite a stay at Meadowood<\/a><\/span> nor dinner at Bouchon<\/a><\/span> (or even <\/span>Ad Hoc<\/span><\/a>, for that matter)<\/span>, so I settled for a highly overrated motel and a quick bite at Bounty Hunter. Afterwards, I fell sway to the siren call of Ali Weiss<\/a><\/span>, a gifted solo performer gracing the nearby Downtown Joe\u2019s with a full encore set. A complimentary CD and a couple shots of Balvenie<\/a><\/span> later, I zigzagged back to my pool-less downtown resort, to the strains of a less mellifluous siren and an eventual night\u2019s sleep.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As with my day in Sonoma, I started off tending to the environmental development of our premises. Immediately, I recognized that Bardessono<\/a><\/span>, a premier green resort which had just opened two days before, was by far the preferable place to have stayed. Renowned eco-developer Phil Sherburne and I sat out by one of his pebble-lined reflecting pools and discussed matters of sustainable development and mutual interest. I hope we forged a relationship that will bear considerable fruit as becomes as\u00a0Sostevinobile<\/span>\u00a0a more tangible reality.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
From there, the rest of my day was devoted introducing our project to several of the wineries, a circuit that ranged from the quaint basement operations of Charter Oak<\/a><\/span> to the opulence of Staglin<\/a><\/span> and Darioush<\/a><\/span>, a gleaming personal monument along the Silverado Trail. Someday, I would hope I could produce a Cabernet to rival their 2005 Signature Cabernet Sauvignon<\/span>! In between my stops, I managed a double Joel Gott, first at his obligatory Taylor\u2019s Automatic Refresher<\/a><\/span>, a McDonald\u2019s-be-damned<\/span> paragon of drive-in burger stops, then for a golf cart-chauffered tour of The Ranch<\/a><\/span>, a humongous custom crush facility in what once housed Sutter Home<\/a><\/span>\u2019s White Zinfandel operations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
An impromptu stop at Conn Creek<\/a><\/span> reintroduced me to their 2005 Anthology<\/span>, as well as a number of deep, rich Cabernets I had tasted last fall at Taste Napa Valley; this time, the experience was amplified by the charms and graciousness of a hyperenthusiastic young wine pourer named Amy, who confided that she had been \u201cbitten\u201d by the wine bug (a generation ago, I might have been \u201csmitten\u201d)<\/span>. And herein lies a contrast Your West Coast Oenophile<\/span> is willing to make, between the impersonal harshness of the urbanized realm and the heartfelt accommodation one feels amid the tranquility of the vines.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
From the jaded perspective of a city dweller, I am amazed how readily, with little prior introduction, people in Napa and throughout the wine country invite you into their homes and how warmly they receive you. Be it the understated setting of Rob Fanucci\u2019s grandfather\u2019s cottage or Shari Staglin\u2019s commanding Rutherford estate, the civility is unaffected, if not a natural extension of their dedication to the wine that they craft.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Back when I began combing the Napa Valley, I used to stop by the Jim Warren\u2019s St. Helena real estate office, lured, in part, by the cookies his wife Maggie would bake for me. Jim, whose father had been the governor of California and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court<\/a><\/span>, was a crewcut, pipe-smoking former Marine who nonetheless took on a decidedly avuncular liking to me. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the wine,\u201d he\u2019d pointedly advise me. \u201cIt\u2019s the lifestyle.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Wish I could tell him today how right he turned out to be.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there a substantive difference between Napa and Sonoma or are they merely two faces of the same coin? Your West Coast Oenophile does not engage in the San Francisco vs. Los Angeles dichotomy nor harbor any desire to plunge into this debate.\u00a0Sostevinobile\u00a0strives to be inclusive for all the wines that meet a sustainable threshold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cabernet-sauvignon","category-white-zinfandel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}