For anyone who loves wine, they know that Napa Valley is the place to go! With over a hundred different wineries and tasting rooms, one can spend forever visiting and tasting wines. Now thanks to my wonderful father, I have been able to visit three times. One of the times we went we did a full blown "first trip to napa" visiting about 13 wineries a day. These included Cakebread, Robert Mondavi, Beringer, Peju, Opus One, V. Sattui, Silver Oak, Duckhorn, Elizabeth Spencer, Grgich Hills, Turnbull, Del Dotto (barrel tasting) etc. the list goes on an on. Of this trip, the most notable wine for its price and quality was at Elizabeth Spencer.
We tried a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Special Cuvee, which was absolutely delicious and very reasonably priced at $40 (you can find it cheaper at wholesale retailers.) It is described as having "excellent fruit extraction with delicious, ripe cherry flavors predominant on the finish of this classically structured wine." My dad and my brother bought a couple of bottles and are currently aging them. We recently went back there this past month for another trip and I now have a bottle of this wonderful wine that I will be storing in the wine cooler refrigerator that my mom got me!
This last trip to Napa we also visited one of what is now my top 10 favorite restaurants, the famous
Mustard's Grill. The wait was absolutely ridiculous (for when we tried to make reservations they were already fully booked) but it was one of those places that you didn't mind waiting an hour and a half for. We started off with their famous Onion Rings with house-made tomato-apple ketchup, which were very surprising for onion rings- light and crispy not heavy or greasy at all. Then my dad ordered the Half-Slab Barbecued Baby Back Ribs, pinot noir baked beans, cheddar-jalapeno corn stix (which is another famous dish). I tried his ribs and they were to die for- falling right off the bone.
I ordered the Tea-smoked Peking Duck with 100-almond onion sauce, which was literally half a duck (anyone who ever orders duck knows they barely give you any meat at all) and this was the softest, most tender and flavorful duck I've ever had. It came with this delicious almond rice and curry sauce with fresh mango slices on top and it was just plain scrumptious. My boyfriend ordered the Grilled Balsamic Quail, goat cheese-fig toasts, arugula salad, which again was absolutely fantastic (of course I tried his too!) The quail was perfectly cooked and the combination of the arugula salad (which came fresh from their on-site organic garden) with the goat cheese and roasted fig toasts was so amazing that I have been eating goat cheese toasts pretty much every day since.
We ended with their other famous dish (yes we tried all of the favorites, who wouldn't?) the Lemon-Lime tart with a mountain of meringue. I am usually not a fan of lemon meringue, but this was so good that we polished it off even though we were already stuffed. While we did not try any of the wines, because we had been drinking since 10am and still had to drive back to Palo Alto, the overall meal was positively splendid and I cannot wait to take my mom back there when she comes to visit in October (this time I will make a reservation first!)
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