napa, day 2
kuleto estate
Originally uploaded by embem30And I'm back already with more tales (and pictures) of Napa.
On Monday morning, we got up around 8am, showered, I put on sunscreen this time, and we headed to the lobby of the inn to try out our complimentary breakfast. I had some pieces of bread with goat cheese, half of Steve's English muffin with strawberry jam, and a container of strawberry banana yogurt, which spit at me when I opened it. (Good thing yogurt doesn't stain things too much.)
This was the one day that we had a little bit of a schedule for our tastings. We had decided to do one expensive tour/tasting on the trip, and I had come across Kuleto Estate while looking at the list of wineries on the Yountville Inn website. All it said in the description was "One of Napa Valley's best kept secrets," so I clicked through to the winery's website. It was a little off the beaten path, required an appointment, and was $35 per person (including tour and tasting with cheese), but the pictures and descriptions on the site were enough to convince me that it would be worth it. So I called the week before and got us an appointment for the 10:30am tour. I figured that it would be good to start the day with the appointment and leave the afternoon with a little more wiggle room for time. The earlier appointments would probably be less crowded too.
So we left the Yountville Inn around 9:30, made our way to Silverado Trail and turned off near Rutherford to follow Sage Canyon Road. It was definitely out there a ways. We drove several miles, following the directions (with pictures!) that Kuleto had emailed us, until we reached the turn for the estate's driveway. And by "driveway," I actually mean one-lane road, winding up the hill, with mirrors and turnouts for another several minutes of driving. Meanwhile, we were hoping not to have to use the turnouts, after seeing a sign at the entrance gate that indicated heavy truck traffic that day. Happily, we didn't encounter any on our way up.
Once we arrived at the top, it took a little while to figure out where we were supposed to meet for the tour, but we soon realized that the unmarked door on the side led into the tasting room. We were greeted by Lindsey, our guide, and then we sat down for a while to look at the cookbooks on the coffee table and wait for another couple to get there. The story with Kuleto Estate is that it's owned by Pat Kuleto, a restaurant designer and owner, who has several restaurants in the Bay Area. I'd seen the cookbooks for a couple of his restaurants (Boulevard and Farallon) before, but we haven't eaten at either of them yet, only Fog City Diner, which he designed (doesn't own that one). He also owns Jardiniere, a restaurant in Hayes Valley that we pass every time we leave the city via the Golden Gate Bridge. (We know that one because the chef, Traci Des Jardins, was on The Next Iron Chef.)
Just as Lindsey decided to start the tour and poured us each a glass of slightly chilled Rosato, the other couple arrived. So she summarized her beginning spiel about the Rosato and Pat Kuleto again for their benefit, and then we headed outside with our glasses. We walked down through a little garden and then back up around, passing a few gathering areas, each with pizza ovens. We quickly learned of Pat's love for pizza ovens and entertaining. Apparently, they have a lot of wine club gatherings at the estate.
We continued up the road a little, and then we were instructed to look out to the left and down. The estate's boat was visible below on Lake Brunello. We were also told about the roses, which are common around vineyards for a variety of possible reasons. The first two reasons--the roses may keep away pests or serve as a indicator of how well the grapes are doing--aren't necessarily correct. Apparently, wine growers in Italy have used different colors of roses for a long time, to mark which vineyards belong to which family. Whatever the real reason is, they're pretty.
Continuing on, we passed the main winery building, again. (We met inside, behind the pillars, and we returned to the outside area for our tasting at the end of the tour.) Beyond that, there was a huge fountain structure, apparently built to stop people from parking in the large open area and blocking the drive to Pat's residence.
Next, we passed the barn that houses the animals, which are mostly used as dinner, except for one turkey who survived a mountain lion attack and earned a pardon. There was lamb that poked its head out for a while, and there were some bunnies in cages. I guess they don't share Carmen's aversion to eating anything "cute." Luckily, we don't mind such things.
As we continued past the animals, we came upon some grape vines that were next to the road. They were muscat grapes, which are sweeter white grapes. They're actually edible in grape form, unlike many wine grapes. We were each given one to try, and told to remember the taste, since we would taste the Muscato wine made from them later. It wasn't as sweet as the average green table grape, but it was pretty good. I should have taken a picture of them in our tour guide's hand, but I wasn't fully in crazy picture mode yet, and I forgot. :(
By this time, we were pretty much below the residence. Lindsey took pictures of us and the other couple in front of a fountain, and Pilot, one of the winery dogs magically appeared, as if on cue. I think he ended up in the other couple's picture, and then he followed us up to our next stop--a lovely vista, because we hadn't seen enough of those yet. (And here's another of those lovely views from a few minutes later.)
Next, we looped up around the residence area. The family was home, so we didn't linger too long. It was really pretty, though. Here is the guest house (I think) and another outdoor dining area behind the main house. Check out those candles.
Walking back around the main house in the direction we came, but on higher ground, we saw Pat Kuleto's "front yard." I think this merits a large picture.
Yes, it was actually that pretty. Prettier, even.
And then it was time to taste more things. I had been working on my Rosato during the tour, but Steve had to hold it every time I wanted to take pictures. Once we sat down at the table, I took a last sip or two and poured the rest out in preparation for the next wine. First up was the Muscato. I've had Muscats before, but they've been sweet dessert wines. This was more like a champagne in flavor, but without the bubbles. I really liked it, and it went well with the first couple cheeses on the plate.
Then came a Sangiovese, which Steve and I both instantly fell in love with. I'm not generally a big fan of red wines, but this was a lighter, less intense wine. We bought a bottle to take home, and I'm looking forward to opening it when we find the right occasion. Following that, we had a few other reds, all of them very good as well.
We learned from Lindsey that Kuleto Estate wines aren't available very many places, and interestingly enough, there's a law that prohibits Kuleto from selling much of it in the restaurants he owns. Theirs can only make up something like 3% of the wines sold.
So... we joined the wine club, at the lower level (=less money commited to paying for wine shipments). All thought of joining the club at Gloria Ferrer left when we considered that we could find a few types of that in stores, unlike Kuleto Estate. Plus, everything we tried at Kuleto was amazing, the place was beautiful, and the fee for the tours and tastings was waived for members.
After the tasting was finished and the form for the wine club was filled out, I went and took a few more pictures of the places we had passed on the first section of the tour--before I started getting more camera happy. (Since they were in the immediate vicinity of the tasting room and where we parked, I figured there would be time to revisit them, rather than taking up time during the tour.) By this time, it was getting close to 1pm already. I had made an appointment for the next winery on our list for that time, and while I was looking forward to going there, I was reluctant to leave Kuleto Estate. I could have stayed much longer, chatting at the table with Lindsey and the other couple and taking a gazillion pictures.
We finally tore ourselves away at 1:00, though, and drove back down the mountain. Once we got back to the Silverado Trail, we didn't have very far to go to get to our next stop: Honig. This was a smaller winery in Rutherford, which I found via Yelp. All the reviews said that they were really laid-back, cool, friendly (and eco-friendly), and they had great wines, including a sweeter Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. That pretty much summed it up. They had a winery dog as well, and a nice shaded area outside the tasting room, where we sat for our tasting. I didn't take many pictures there, but we did end up buying a bottle of the aformentioned dessert wine.
By the time we finished at Honig, it was almost 3:00. We asked Nate, our pourer there, if he recommended somewhere for food and were directed to the Rutherford Grill. Steve got a French Dip, and I got Spinach/Artichoke Dip, served with salsa and sour cream too. I was feeling the alcohol after the generous tastes at Kuleto and more normal sized ones at Honig, and this was perfect.
At 4:00 we were back on the road, heading South toward Yountville, but we stopped at one final winery for a tasting. Mumm Napa was on my list, and a glass of sparkling wine sounded good after a day of lots of reds. We sat outside on the terrace, but it was crowded enough that we were a table or two back from the good view. We could still enjoy it, but pictures wouldn't be as good. (I had to get up and walk around to get better ones.) One glass of bubbly to share ended up being enough for us, and we were soon driving back to the Yountville Inn.
Our dinner reservations that night were for 6pm at Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller's fancy family-style restaurant that was literally a two-minute walk from our hotel. While eating early is a good strategy for getting good pictures (before the light goes away) and beating crowds, we learned on this trip that it's not necessarily the best strategy in wine country. The late lunch was probably not the best idea, even though we tried not to fill up too much. Luckily, we had enough time at the inn for me to recover from the alcohol before dinner.
Unfortunately, I really didn't feel like drinking any more with dinner. This seemed to disappoint our waiter, who was very excited about wine pairings, but at least Steve took his advice about beer and then wine with the cheese course. I, on the other hand, ordered the house-made strawberry cream soda, and it was girly and fabulous.
The menu at Ad Hoc changes nightly, and everyone gets the same thing, barring any allergies. Since they knew about my allergies, there were a few adjustments made for me, but they were pretty minor things. An almond relish was left out of my cheese course, and a pecan brittle on top of the dessert was substituted with crumbled shortbread.
Bread and butter came first, followed by a salad. The salad had bits of romaine, bits of egg, cucumbers, red onion, capers, and raisins in it, providing a nice amount of variety. There were also chopped up black olives in the dressing, so Steve concluded that it was a version of a classic nicoise salad.
Next was the main course, which that evening was a Nantucket-style barbecue. We each got a little pan with a bacon-wrapped scallop and some stew in it, and a large pile of ribs arrived in the middle of our table.
The scallop was well-prepared, but I'm figuring out that I might not be the biggest fan of scallops in the world. The stew was good, though. The ribs? I've learned that for me, most ribs aren't really worth the trouble of getting the meat off the bones. The flavor on the outside of these was good, but it didn't seem to go deep enough into the meat. I was also starting to get full by this point, so I was trying to save room. Two more courses to go...
The cheese course was next, and things were looking up. It was a goat cheese, served with figs, and beer flatbread. I like goat cheese. A lot. I don't know how the almond relish was, but I certainly didn't miss it. The only sad part was not finishing it all. I needed room for dessert.
Dessert was a brownie (coriander seeds in it... interesting), with creme fraiche ice cream, strawberry sauce, and those shortbread crumbs on top. Perfect ending to the meal. I couldn't finish it all, so it was a good thing the brownie wasn't any bigger.
On our way out, I took a quick picture of the sign above the bar. It had a simplified version of the menu on it.
When dinner was over, we walked back to our hotel room. However, there was still a good amount of light, and I had just read in my photography book that dawn and dusk were really the only times to take landscape shots. And I did have my tripod on the trunk in case I wanted to take any pictures at night... So we changed back into our jeans and walked down the road to the French Laundry, camera and tripod in tow.
I set up across the street from the restaurant, while Steve wandered away to look at the French Laundry garden, behind me. Again, I remembered the photography book and decided to go a step further. Not only would I use my tripod, I would also use my remote to work the shutter and get clearer shots. I turned the camera down to the lowest ISO (less grain, but less light), and had shutter speeds of several seconds. The shots came out pretty clear, and I was happy with the results. There weren't enough cars going by to get good pictures with trails of light, though.
Next, I turned around and took few pictures of the garden, with the greenhouse in the background. I kicked it up another notch (BAM!) by tinkering with my camera and enabling mirror lock-up. (The mirror snaps up prior to taking the picture so all it has to do when the shutter opens to actually take the picture is drop it back down, saving a movement and shaking the camera that much less. Less movement=clearer shot. Ok, enough geekdom... back to the pictures.)
Finally, as the light was dying, I turned around again and took one more set of pictures of The French Laundry, with all its lights on. Not quite as fun as eating there, but much cheaper :)
