Napa – Day One

The palate refresher: Bistro Don Giovanni
On arrival into Napa we had an appointment for a private tour and tasting at Hall Winery but thanks to the fine folks from Southworst Airlines who had to make a “pit stop” in Dallas for “gas” – really, that’s what they said, I can imagine the pilots now “Hey bro, you’ve got to pull over, we need some gas and I’ve got to take a wicked piss’ – and the subsequent delay therein held us back long enough to miss our appointment.  But alas, being the resilient bunch we are, we managed to find a watering hole near our hotel, called a winemaker buddy and away we went.    The place we chose to freshen us up was Bistro Don Giovanni, certainly one of my sentimental favorites in Napa and greeting us on arrival was an Angel Corkscrew with open arms, a good omen by any means.

Welcomed to the Napa Valley with open arms.

I decided to begin with one of the house specialty cocktails, the Blood Orange Negroni – a twist on the classic WWI Florentine cocktail.  They infused Plymouth Gin with Blood Oranges for about 7 days and using that Gin they proceeded as normal from there, adding Sweet Vermouth and Campari.  It certainly was tasty cocktail, but I think the Blood Orange was a little overkill and really cut the flavor of the Campari – which is the whole reason for the drink.

A good cocktail, no doubt, but if it ain't broke. . .

Whilst I was sipping away we also ordered a bottle of ’06 Dehlinger “Goldridge Vineyard” Pinot Noir.   I wasn’t taking detailed tasting notes, per se, but the bottle was very generous on fruit without being too dense or overly fruity, very balanced and had a clove-y, cardamom-my type spice on the finish that was really nice.  It went very well with the Antipasti plate that, after our day long sojourn, we descended on like a pack of wild jackals and thus there is no photographic evidence of our first bites of food in Napa.

So, while we are amusing our bouches my good friend and winemaker Paul Hoffman rolls up with a bag of wine he’s made, we retire next door back to the hotel and begin tasting his wines.  Not letting cat out of the bag here too much, Paul is the winemaker for our Cleverwines and as well we’re planning a roll out of his wines here in NOLA.  There’ll be much fanfare around that so I’m not going into great depth here on his wines. . . yet!  That said, here are the line-up of Paul’s wine we tried.

The Line-Up of Wines from winemaker Paul Hoffman

The Dinner: Redd
After an appropriate amount of ’06 Curveball Red and White we head up the road a bit to Yountville for dinner at Redd and what was hands down, no questions asked one of the most amazing meals I’ve had in a long, long, long time. Chef Richard Reddington has had a bit of a rock star history including stints at David Burke’s Park Avenue Café in New York City, then Rubicon in San Francisco, then to France at the Michelin three-star Arpege and Le Moulin de Mougins with Roger Vergé which led him back to New York with Daniel Boulud at Restaurant Daniel. Moving back west, he had few other stints but hit it really big at Jardiniere in San Francisco and then finally as Executive Chef at the landmark Auberge du Soleil.   Let it suffice to say this guy knows how to boil water.

We started at the bar with a glass ’04 Saxon-Brown Syrah Parmalee-Hill Vineyard, a good starting point comparison to the 2006 Atmosphere Syrah from Parmalee-Hill that Paul makes.  Not too much fruit comes off Parmalee-Hill so the chance to taste two side by side was a treat.  Certainly there were differences, but both were wines of depth and subtlety with the trademark white pepper and spice and deep, red fruit of good Sonoma Syrah. ( Now, be patient here, I’m still working on taking low light photographs and I’m no pro at it yet, but I’m getting there.)

A Glass of Saxon Brown Syrah at the bar at Redd

It might have been a little too dark in Redd to get the gist of my photos, but I started with Yellowfin tuna tartare with avocado, chili oil, fried rice.  A perfect fresh, clean and zesty bite of food which gave way, fortunately to the richness of the Prime new york steak with (are you ready) shortrib cannelloni, horseradish, leek fondue and crispy fingerling “potatoe chips” – the coup d’grace, however, was the addition (by request) of the (I can barely get my hands to stop trembling long enough to type this) foie gras meatballs on the plate.  A singular bite of perfection, a gourmet comfort food of all gourmet comfort foods.  About the size of a marble, a half dozen or so of these delectable little nuggets lined my plate.

Unfortunately my photos of the entrees didn’t do the meal justice so I’m leaving them off the post, however we did have an able bodied companion to all of this, other than Paul’s Syrah, which was the ’05 Crocker-Starr Cabernet Franc, a wine much deeper and richer than you’d expect from Cab Franc – but by that point I was in foie gras bliss and who was I to complain.

Not a shabby way to start things off, I’d say.  Stay tuned.

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