The trip started with a nice visit to the Jean Edwards Cellars co-op tasting room, Wines on First, in downtown Napa. I had been in touch with Karen ahead of time, and while they were back on the east coast and couldn’t be there, she was kind enough to set up a very nice tasting for me with their staff. I tasted through their full line up of wines, and really enjoyed the experiencing the differences that vintage and vineyard played in the outcome of their cabs. These are really well-made wines, with very big-structure that you can immediately tell will age nicely for a long time. My two favorites from this group were the 2013 “74-41” and the 2013 Rutherford G3.

Ahead of the trip I had contacted Will at Rivers-Marie, hoping to set up a tasting with him. Unfortunately he was going to be out of town during my visit. He referred me over to Mending Wall instead, which I was happy about since I hadn't gotten the chance to taste anything from that project yet. The facility and tasting room are very nice, and I enjoyed a private tasting with Amy who was wonderful. My only disappointment was they weren't pouring the Petit Sirah and I was really excited to try that based on everything I had heard. I did picked a bottle anyways to have in a few years.

I signed up to do the tour and cave tasting at Failla based on recommendations from the board, and because I thought some nice Sonoma-based Pinot and Chardonnay would be a good change of pace from all the big, rich cabs I'd be drinking the rest of the trip. Failla is the home of Ehren Jordan, where he expresses his love for cool climate Pinot, Chardonnay, and Syrah. We started the tour in a quaint old house/tasting room, then moved outside to view the crush pad, and eventually made our way into the caves for the bulk of the tasting. It was cool to see them experimenting with some concrete eggs in their aging process. Also interesting to find a Napa site that isn't doing any Cab. I liked the style here, especially enjoying the Keefer Ranch Pinot and the Hudson Vineyard Syrah. The Chardonnays were good, but a tad rich in style to what I'm preferring these days.

For the first tasting of Day 2, I met up with Leah Smith at the Envy Winery in Calistoga. Mike was in the back working, but popped in a few times to say hello and chat. I even had the privilege of meeting one of their daughters and their very energetic dog. Leah shared the story of how Mike got into the wine business by working for free under Thomas Brown the first few harvests while they still lived in Oregon, the moving to Napa for an offer to be Thomas' assistant wine maker. From there it was a bunch of hard work learning and perfecting his craft, and eventually starting Myriad as his own portfolio wine. Receiving a number of high scores on his wines elevated his status in the industry, then everyone wanted to work with him. Today, he is making wine for around 10 different labels. I also really enjoyed talking to Leah about some of the business aspects of running their labels, and heard some more about their recent land purchase in Calistoga and their future estate plans.

I have been buying the Becklyn wines for the past three years, but only recently started buying some Myriad, so I was very excited to get to sit down and taste these wines. Going in, I knew nothing about the Ancillary label, so that was a nice surprise getting to taste some Pinot and Chardonnay from Sangiacomo, in addition to the Cabs, Syrah, and Semillon. One of my favorite tastings of the trip because of the variety of wines which were poured, all of which were fantastic.

I had the privilege of being invited over to Merrill Lindquist's house to drink some wine and share some good conversation with her. It was so cool to hear her story and the unlikely path she followed to end up making the Black Cat Cabernet. Her house has an awesome view out the back of the vineyards and valley floor, and she walked me around the vines talking about how she evaluates everything throughout the growing season. We also spent a lot of time talking through the process she goes through to select the blend of the different barrels each year, as how the Special Selection and new "Sparkles" bottles are differentiated.

Merrill decided to opened a 2013 Black Cat and the 2014 "Sparkles Selection" for my visit. Both had been open and decanting since the morning (about 5-6 hours in the decanter). She said she hadn't check in on the "Sparkles" in a while, so was excited to do so. If you've had Merrill's wines before, you know her style is not the typical fruit forward, big oak cab. The wines are pretty, pure, with very clean fruit and no oak at all coming through. We enjoyed the wines over the course of two hours, and they opened up and became even more nuanced the longer they were in the glass.

I set this tour up based on good online feedback and recommendations from this board. The winery sits part of the way up onto Howell Mountain, in a little valley within the mountain range. It has a very secluded feel and definitely off the beaten path. I ended up being the only appointment, so I had a one on one experience with Jeremy, their tasting room/tour manager. We started in the tasting room (with some chardonnay), then rode a golf cart up the hill towards the caves, viewing the vineyards along the way. The majority of the time was spent at a seated tasting inside the nice caves. They provided a very nice plate of cheese and nuts to go with the wines during the tasting.

The overall experience was very nice, and Jeremy and I had some really good conversation about wine, family, work, and his plans to get into the wine making business. The wines were good, definitely big, but somewhat generic or "typical" of Napa. I didn’t walk away with the same level of appreciation for the uniqueness of these wines like I did at all my other visits on this trip. I also felt like the pricing on these wines was way too high for their relative quality. Their Napa cabernet and Eloge were both $120 at the winery, which I felt was way too high. I know these can be obtained at retail for a lot less.