The Wards: Day 1: Napa Valley

Our first full day in Napa was beautiful. It was sunny all day, it wasn't particularly warm, but warm enough. We topped out at 55 degrees but in the sun it felt pretty nice.
We started the day with a big breakfast at our hotel restaurant. Then it was off to William Hill. This is a medium sized winery by Napa's standards, about 100,000 cases/year. We have always enjoyed their wines, dating back to 2005 so we wanted to stop and check it out. They had a very nice vineyard and it had some great photo ops. We also enjoyed the wines in the tasting. We decided to join their wine club while we were there so we will be getting some William Hill over the next year.

Next stop Disneyland, I mean Rubicon. Rubicon Estates is the MECCA of Napa Valley. We have been members at Rubicon since our first stop there in November 2009. We enjoy their wines immensely. As members, you get free tastings whenever you are in Napa. The tastings are $50 for non-members and take about 45 minutes. We try the new wines (3 of which have already been delivered to us) and 2 which are limited distribution and will never be sold outside California. They assign a taster to about 3 couples and he goes back and forth about the history of the wine and it is very enjoyable and educational. After the tasting, we took the tour of the vineyard and learned about the site from the very beginning.
A guy by the name of Gustave Neibaum founded Inglenook (now Rubicon) in 1880. This guy was 35 years old and had was a multi-millionaire from some Alaskan Fur Trading. Think about that, 35 years old and worth millions of dollars, that's pretty impressive in 2010, how about in 1880. Warren Buffet might even be a little jealous. Anyway, this guy Gustave bought the site which is now Rubicon. He began winemaking and then it passed down to his Grand Nephew Josh Daniel and then in 1975 Francis Ford Coppola purchased the estate. Coppola owned the property for 20 years until he was able to buy Inglenook in 1995. That is when Rubicon was formed and now it is their flagship wine. It is a French Bordeaux style Cabernet. It sits for 22 months in French Oak (80% of those barrels are new at $1600 a piece) and then goes to the bottle. We will receive our 2007 Rubicon this coming March. We have 2005 and 2006 at home. These wines can last easily 20-years at the right temperature and get better with age and worth more. It was an amazing experience and we'll get some pictures posted of the beautiful Rubicon Estate.
After Rubicon we moved up toward St. Helena, another town north of Napa. We stopped at Franciscan, another good winery. We also tasted Mt. Veeder there, so 2 different wines are poured at this site. We have had both before, but it was interesting to learn about them a little more in depth.
After our 3 tasting of the day, we were done drinking wine. We headed to Go Fish for lunch, a great seafood place in St. Helena. We had some sushi and just recovered from 3 tastings and drank lots of water. We are very careful while tasting not to drink too much, water in between, dump out wines that we don't like. It's not a drinking contest, you won't insult the winery by dumping out wine. Drink what you like, and only what you like.
After lunch we made our way back to Napa (about 20 miles south of St. Helena) and took a little afternoon nap. Dinner was just across the street at Oenotri, a great Italian restaurant. We went to bed early after a long day of wine tasting. Day 1 was great, hoping for the rest to live up to the 1st day.