A JEWEL IN NAPA VALLEY

By John Olney
August 30, 2008, all rights reserved, Wine Country Marketing and Promotions,

1325 Imola West, #409, Napa, CA Phone: 707-299-9548
Web site: www.twccwcmp.blogspot.com E-mail: winecountrypromo@aol.com

At the request of John Naab and Adrianne Love, on Sunday, August 17, 2008, I escorted their friends around Napa Valley for a little wine tasting, site seeing and lunch. The group included: Massimo Gareri, Jewel Di Paolo, Jennifer Liang and Savio Au (Shown from left to right below) Simply click on the pictures for enlargements.

They got a little lost coming to Napa from San Francisco, but not too badly. I suggested we meet at COPIA which has been tilted “The America Center for Wine Food and the Arts.” However, due to a lack of any serious attendance by local residents and out of area tourists, COPIA has had to drastically cut back on expenses. The first are of cuts was in the arts, followed by the food programs.

I walked them around the first floor area and they were not very impressed with what they experienced. There were only about 40-50 people milling around the displays, wine dispensing machines, the gift shop and the restaurant. They had seen enough so we moved on to our first winery - Silverado Vineyards located along Silverado Trail near the city line between Napa and Yountville.

I drove my car and they followed in theirs. I called them on the cell phone to provide tidbits on buildings, etc. as we drove north on the Trail. Jewel translated into Italian for Massimo and Jennifer translated in Chinese for Savio. This system worked quite well.

Our first stop, Silverado Vineyards (www.silveradovineyards.com/), is pictured below at the main entryway to the tasting room.

We then proceeded into the tasting room where I found Tom, who I worked with when I was employed at this winery back in 2000.

That’s me in the center being the ham that I am! We’re on the deck outside the tasting room looking north towards Mt. St. Helena which is above the head of Savio on the left.

From Silverado Vineyards I took the party to a site that very few tourists ever visit, but which I feel is very important since it commemorates the site where the first Caucasian settler, George C. Yount, who received the first Mexican Land Grant, established his home in Napa County. The town was originally named Sebastopol” but later was changed to “Yountville” about six years after Yount passed away.

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Here is a blowup of the plaque:

We then left for the next winery, Mumm Napa (www.mummnapa.com/ ) at which I also had been employed.

Jewel couldn’t wait to get to this winery and taste the bubbly.

Then it was off to lunch at Rutherford Gill (a.k.a. Hillstone's chains including "Houston" - www.hillstone.com/#/restaurants/rutherfordGrill/ )

Boy, were they all very hungry! And where did they put all that food?

As we conversed during our late lunch, I found out that Jennifer lives in my hometown of San Leandro, California, located across the bay from San Francisco. So we compared notes on streets, restaurants and bars that I knew about when growing up in the town and I found most of the bars & restaurants were either gone or she just didn’t know anything about them.

As it was getting late and they all had to return to San Francisco we said our goodbye’s at the Grill. Believe me, this was a great group to be out touring with and I look forward to being with them again.

Just some general snaps: