This was the first winery of the trip and one of the first wineries on the 29 heading out of Downtown Napa. The wines here were serviceable overall, but I was most impressed with the hospitality and graciousness of our hosts. Didn't find anything here that I would purchase, but had an enjoyable time.

Perhaps the most disappointing visit of the trip? After stopping by St. Supery, Peju, & Beaulieu (without tasting), we stopped here because I had heard good things about their wines. We paid $30 for a reserve tasting of 3 wines! Unfortunately, these were completely over-priced and the Old Vine zin was even offensive at $85/bottle. Couple that with an arrogant and overall unfriendly host and I can safely say I won't be purchasing any wines from Grgich Hills for quite some time. On the plus side, we did get a complimentary wine glass with our tasting.

Heard really good things about these folks so had to make a stop. The wines here were good to great and our hostess was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. Standouts for me were the cab franc (I love good cab franc) and the '05 Estate Grown Cab Sauv. They were having a cellar sale the day we were here so we were able to taste a number of wines off of that list as well for free.

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Hall! The tasting room isn't much and it was empty when we went on Sunday. I thought this was a little unusual as some of the wineries making lesser quality wines were packed full of people. Hall clearly has a reputation for making amazing cabernets. Maybe because it's a relatively new winery? Either way, the style of cabernet here is super ripe and jammy. I thought that I might have found this offensive for my palate, but I really enjoyed everything we tasted. Like Provenance, they had a really great cab franc. The '07 Napa Valley cab and '06 Bergfeld were super jammy and ripe with mouth-smacking tannins. The '07 Kathryn Hall cab was absolutely phenomenal and easily one of the best cabernets I've ever had. It wasn't over the top jammy like the prior two cabs. It was rich with huge tannins, but it was also elegant and balanced. I will have to pick up a few bottles of this (can find it much cheaper in retailers than for the $80 price tag at the winery). The wines here were so big and beautiful that we had to order a plate of cheese to pair with them. Our hostess was great and gave us complimentary tasting coupons to Alpha Omega (!!!!) and St. Clement. I'm considering a wine club subscription to Hall now.

Another amazing, relatively new winery just down the road from Hall. We had a complimentary tasting for two given to us by the nice folks at Hall. The wines here, like at Hall, were outstanding. Big, rich, yet elegant and balanced at the same time. The sauvignon blanc was delicious and I generally hate SB (the only SB that's been able to please me is the '09 Grey Stack Rosemary's Block). Now I can add the 1155 to that list. The chardonnay was superb with very little oak influence and malolactic fermentation (I generally don't like over-oaked, buttery CA chards). The cabernet and proprietary red were superb and I may have to pick up a couple of those also. Also considering a wine club membership to Alpha Omega.

Our final winery on Day 1 was at St. Clement further up past St. Helena. The tasting room here is quite small and quaint, but has a gorgeous view of St. Helena. The kind folks at Hall gave us complimentary 2 for 1 tasting coupon. The wines here were pretty good, although maybe a bit overpriced for the quality. The Steinhauer Ranch Single Vineyard cab was great and was an extra pour that our kind host gave us in addition to our tasting.

This was the first winery of the second day and one of the first we hit on the Silverado Trail. This place was recommended by our innkeepers at the Inn on 1st Street and we had a complimentary tasting coupon for two. Hagafen Cellars is the only winery that produces Kosher wine in Norther CA. Our hostess was really friendly and we tasted through the extensive current releases. Our hostess informed us that the Prix reserve wines are served at the White House. We even tasted a sparkling wine (that happened to be one of the stand outs) that wasn't on the current release menu. Overall, Hagafen had some of the lowest rated wines of the weekend. My most common note about their wines is that they were hollow, lacking fruit, or the fruit just simply disappeared on the mid-palate. They generally produced wines that were lighter bodied than typical for the varietal. I think Hagafen's white wines were much better than their red wines with the sparkling wine, roussanne, and the '10 Estate Riesling being the standouts. I would pass on all of the reds that we tasted. At the very least, their wines are, for the most part, reasonably priced for the quality. I would have been curious to try the Prix reserve wines for comparison.

One of the standouts of the trip for me. The tasting room is gorgeous and our hostess was so friendly, gracious, and helpful. I mentioned that I enjoyed chenin blanc and that I had heard they made a decent chenin blanc-viognier so she added this to our tasting. The wines here are high quality although I'm not sure some of them are a good value for the price. Our hostess also added a couple of cabernets to our tasting that weren't on the menu. Guess it pays to taste on a quiet Monday in January. Standouts here for me were the Tessitura, a malbec-cab blend, and the two extra cabernets she poured (the '06 Oakville and the '07 Stags Leap District). I felt like the '06 Onyx might have been a little corked, although I didn't mention anything as I wasn't sure and Sameer didn't notice anything funky about the wine.

I called Baldacci to see whether we could stop by for a tasting, as we were recommended by our innkeepers at the Inn on 1st Street. We were told (by our innkeepers) that we would likely get a free tasting since they referred us, but we ended up paying for two tastings. The wines here were pretty average on the whole. Inoffensive but we felt that most wines here were probably to be drunk with food and not by themselves. As with Hagafen, I felt like a number of these wines were hollow, lacking fruit and structure. Many of these were also lighter in style than typical for their varietals. The gewurz was probably the most perplexing for me as it had a huge, beautiful nose that completely missed on the palate. Definitely the biggest disconnect between the nose and the palate out of all of the wines this weekend. The best part about this winery was that it was a very quiet Monday in January, with temperatures in the high 60s, low 70s with the sun shining bright. We sat out on the patio tasting our wine with a gorgeous view of the vines, an adorable farm dog named Libby, in the most peaceful, serene setting imagineable. I could definitely do this everyday (except maybe with better wine).

Another complimentary tasting coupon, another disappointment. The best wine here was the Tempranillo but it didn't have much competition. Our host, who was a little strange, opened a cab franc for some others in the tasting room and we were able to try this. A terrible example of cab franc that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. Most of the wines here were disjointed and tasted really cheap. Our host made some quip about the fact that their Estate Chardonnay made them famous and if you don't agree, then there's the door. I was ready to go because if that was the chardonnay that made this winery famous, I didn't have much hope for the rest of the lineup. Our host also offered us the '05 Howell Mountain cab and the '08 Muscat Canelli. I didn't like either, and it is really hard to screw up a sweeter, dessert-style wine. The muscat was lacking in acidity and was one-dimensional. For the price of that muscat, I could buy a beautiful Sauternes. The most interesting thing about this winery were some of the novelties, such as the chocolate-coated wine bottle (that actually was a real bottle of wine - as our host put it, lick and sip) as well as the personalized wine bottles. I guess being gimmicky is important when there isn't quality to back it up.

We ended our final day with a tasting at Turnbull, again with a complimentary tasting coupon for two. The wines were ranged from average to very good, with the standouts being the '07 cab and '06 Leopoldina cab. The one thing I had wished about this tasting was that our hostess would have stopped talking while we were tasting. A little information is great but she kept on and on about the wine even though I was clearly trying to concentrate on tasting.