Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Mount View Hotel & Spa

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Mount View Hotel & Spa

By Kat Thomas, Edible Skinny
Time to wine down…  Kelly and I checked in at the iconic Mount View Hotel & Spa, which sits centrally on Calistoga’s Lincoln Avenue and has been a beacon for enthusiastic travelers searching out the region’s abundant amenities and mineral-rich waters for over a century.  Designed with relaxation in mind, Mount View Hotel & Spa has been a favorite since 1919.  It’s the detailing that sets this place apart, upon our arrival Matthew, one of the hotel’s managers, gave us a bottle of One Hope Sparkling to celebrate Kelly’s impending nuptials!

At the Mount View Hotel each of the 33 guest rooms, suites and private cottages have been furnished with it's original art deco architect in mind, mixed with contemporary accents to give a relaxed and trendy vibe.  Mount View Hotel & Spa was recognized in 1981 on the National Register of Historic Places, and with due reason.  The Mount View Hotel & Spa has had a handful of colorful proprietors who have left a lasting impact on the grandeur seen and felt today.  While staying there Kelly and I stayed in the “Twin Bedroom” (something right out of a 1940s screwball comedy..), the tub and sink were classic clawfoot (perfect for rogue champagne bottles) something the in-room Illy Coffee counterbalanced the next day! ;-)


Mount View's beautiful backyard includes an outdoor heated pool, natural mineral whirlpool (gotta get your healing waters in...), cabanas, private grounds patio that allows you to relax in comfort and style with a glass of wine. The hotel has dining on the property, with two on-site restaurants: boasting contemporary American eats at Johnny’s Calistoga and French-inspired fare at Veraison, as well as the newly opened Indie Blue Lounge, where guests can enjoy an artisanal coffee experience and wine tasting.

Inspired by One Hope Wines and the first of its kind in Calistoga, the Mount View Hotel has adopted “cause integration” hospitality in the Napa Valley.  Mount View Hotel donates 50 percent of its profits to charity from environmental causes to children’s needs (that’s right you read that correct: 50 percent!!!).  Oh, and the hotel is also a certified Green Hotel.  The Mount View Hotel’s vision is to create exceptional experiences that inspires people to indulge while doing good.  Talk about the perfect reason to take an overnight to Calistoga! ;-)

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Calistoga

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Calistoga

By Kat Thomas, Edible Skinny

After all our imbibing (and there was A LOT of imbibing), Titus of Beau Wine Tours & Limousine Service chauffeured us to Calistoga, depositing us at the Mount View Hotel to start embracing the art of relaxation! 

Calistoga is located on the north end of Napa Valley (75 miles north of San Francisco).  This small town is famous for its hot springs, hotel and spas, world-class restaurants, and whimsical wineries, including Castello di Amorosa, a 13th century Tuscan castle.  Earlier this year, Amy Poehler shot a portion of her new Netflix film comedy, Wine Country, in this picture perfect hamlet.

Calistoga has a population of just 5,330 people while maintaining 46 lodging properties, 23 restaurants/cafés/bars, and 18 spas.  The latter’s most famous is Indian Springs. which dates back to 1860 when California’s first millionaire Sam Brannon envisioned a world-class resort based on the area’s steamy mineral waters.  3 million years ago a volcano erupted and created a petrified forest and these watery healing grounds used by the Wappo Indians from the 1700s on. 

Brannon coined the name “Calistoga,” a combination of California and Saratoga, a resort in Upstate New York he admired.  From then on Calistoga becomes noted for its natural mineral water and elegant hot springs resort.  Two ingredients that make Calistoga’s spas so unique are the volcanic ash and the geothermal mineral water.  And the results are more than popular as more than half of the spas in Calistoga offer hot springs or mineral pools.  Another famous natural landmark of the town is Old Faithful Geyser of California, a small geyser set against the backdrop of palm trees and mountains that historically erupts every 45 minutes. 

Calistoga is designated as its own distinct AVA with an area of seven square miles and over 60 different wineries.  Other than the Madrigal Family Winery, landmark wineries in the area include include Frank Family Winery (the third oldest winery in Napa Valley), Twomey, Sterling Vineyards, Dutch Henry Winery and Chateau Montelena Winery, which is housed in a jaw-dropping, ivy-covered castle with landscaped gardens.  In 2019, Napa Valley’s first Four Seasons will open in Calistoga with 85 guest rooms, 20 villas, and its own vineyard and winery. 

 

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Madrigal Family Winery

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Madrigal Family Wine

By Kat Thomas, Edible Skinny

Our last planned sipping experience of the day (there was still more to come courtesy of JACK Winery) was the third generation run Madrigal Family Winery.  Located on Highway 29, between Calistoga and St. Helena, this winery is situated on 40 acres of estate vineyards, from the highway to the treeline.  Madrigal Family Winery is boutique, producing about 6,000 cases of wine a year.  Cabernet Sauvignon is the primary varietal you'll find at the winery, but Madrigal also ventures out into Tempranillo, Cabernet Franc, Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc, focusing on small lots of a single vineyard.

The Madrigals first started farming some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyards in the 1930's.  The family left Mexico in the late 1930's and arrived in the Napa Valley where they began farming apples, pears, walnuts and grapes.  They were one of the first, if not the first, Mexican family in upper Napa Valley.   Early on Jess, who fathered 12 children, chose to focus on wine agriculture and started the family's vineyard management business.  After working for Napa icons like Duckhorn, in the 1990's they decided to get in on the fun of making wine.  In 1995, Madrigal Family Winery produced its first vintage of 500 cases of Petite Sirah.  Today, that company manages over 800 acres.  Looks like grape juice suits them! ;-)

The Madrigal family history is a constant source of inspiration, and guides them in their winemaking now. They value the long relationship they've had with the land and the people of the upper Valley, believing that the combined wisdom of the folks who’ve been here for generations and a deep appreciation of these vineyards can be tasted in their wine.  Today, the company is run by Chris Madrigal, the founder's grandson, and vintner of Madrigal Family Winery. 

Chris, who has 3 kids of his own, ultimately attributes the family’s success to a strong work ethic and luck.  “I always say sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.  I like being good and a lot of the things that have happened in our life has been a result of working hard, but if there wasn't luck involved with it, or if we weren't at the right place at the right time, our story could be drastically different.  Be it luck or hard work, the Madrigal dream is alive and well.” 

Not that it makes it easy.  “There is not a lot of family vineyards left in Napa Valley, but this is our life.”  Madrigal Family Winery is a portfolio company of Bacchus Capital Management, an investment firm providing strategic capital and making equity investments in United States family owned wineries and wine businesses.  And Chris is not afraid to talk numbers with the guests.  He explained the cost per acre to create a wine is $44,000.  Any wine selling for under $30 in Napa is not making any money for the winery.  So Madrigal Family Winery combats the daunting numbers with a constant dedication to their supporters.   “We do 6 parties a year for our wine club, most wineries do one or two.  We do a crab boil with no utensils, everything you eat is with your hands.  And the results are astounding: the average retention rate of a wine club is 18 months.  Madrigal’s is 6 years!”

Madrigal Family Winery also has a tasting room in Sausalito, but the best way to experience their wines is by visiting where their roots lie in Napa surrounded by the grapes. 

Some wine favorites from our time at Madrigal Family Wine include:     

• Gewurztraminer Mendocino (2016) - Storytelling white wine!!!  Pales straw in color with peach and rose petal aromas.  The stone fruit flavorings and crisp finish allow for even the tallest of tales to have a great ending!

• Petite Sirah Estate (2014) - This sophisticated wine is also the biggest varietal made in Calistoga.  With notes of vanilla, blue fruits, and plums, this would be perfectly paired with a really nice BLT on sourdough with thick sliced bacon.  It screams: JUICY.

• Las Vinas del Senor Cabernet Sauvignon (2014) - This wine was first crafted when Dad Jess turned 80.  It’s a showstopper with elegance, sophistication, and a velvet finish to celebrate a nuanced lifetime!  Vanilla, cherry, and cedar showcase the richness of the wine, and eighty years of experience!

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Silver Trident Winery

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley - Intimate Micro-Experiences in the World of Wine, Food, and the Art of Relaxation (PART TWO)

By Kat Thomas, Edible Skinny

Yesterday I wanted wine.
Today I’m drinking wine.
Follow your dreams…
And drink up bitches!!!

Sip sip hooray!!!  Part Two of our FAB trip through Napa Valley (and a big shout out to Beau Wine Tours for helping plan out all these AMAZING winery adventures!!!)

So here’s to life being delicious, all your moments being postcard worthy, and Cabernet all day, everyday in Napa Valley!!!

SILVER TRIDENT WINERY

Returning to the hustle and bustle of Yountville (or what Napa Valley calls hustle and bustle...), we were greeted at Silver Trident Winery by the glowing Mallory.  Intimate and inviting, Silver Trident Winery has appointment only wine tastings in their beautifully warm Tuscan-style stone building.  Their “Tasting Home” consists of a living room, dining room and library, all furnished with Ralph Lauren Home.  There’s no tasting bar, no standing on your feet, no rush, at all.  Crafting small production wines (2-3k cases per year) created in the heart of the Napa Valley, Silver Trident Winery has the catchphrase of: “Big Personality, Small Production.  Endless Passion.”


Along with working at Silver Trident Winery, Mallory runs Vine Living blog, so she give us the skinny on it all!  She explained to Kelly and I that Silver Trident Winery is the passion project of Bob Binder, cofounder of Oceania Cruises.  Binder helped make this luxury cruise line’s food and beverage program one of the finest at sea, collaborating along the way with such food luminaries as Jacques Pépin, Bon Appétit, and Wine Spectator.  Binder resides in Napa with his partner Walter Jost.  Mallory gushed, “they are the nicest sweetest men.”  In 2009 Binder and Jost decided to made 100 cases Cabernet.  The next year they added 100 cases of Pinot Noir.

They opened their “Tasting Home” in 2012, with a whole new approach to wine pairing: great wines with the world-class home decor of Ralph Lauren.  In the past, the iconic fashion company had crafted Ralph Lauren Home-furnished suites on two of Oceanic largest ships.  These 2,500-square-foot suites, with their ebony baby grand pianos and mahogany and quartzite bars, were specifically decorated to “capture the feeling of Ralph Lauren’s passions for sailing, adventure, and travel."  While working with Ralph Lauren Home, Binder learned the company was looking for an opportunity to open a northern California showroom. That got him to thinking about the possibility of offering wine tasting in a home setting.

Wine tasting in the town of Yountville is a unique experience because the Yountville Town Council requires wine tasting rooms in town to use at least 25% of their floor space for retail sales of items other than wine.  You will find wine tasting rooms in town that also include wine accessories, artwork, antiques, and even cookware (shoutout to our friends at Hestan!).  So when it came to the decorating of Silver Trident’s “Tasting Home,” Binder and Jost decided to utilize the luxury home master once again! ;-)

To continue the concept of the “Tasting Home,” Silver Trident collaborated with chef Sarah Scott to create food pairings for each of their five wines (since homes traditionally serve food…). Sarah has been cooking in the Napa Valley since the early 1980s and has developed a talent for food and wine pairings.  She is the co-author of a cookbook with Connie Green titled The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food.  Noshes we sampled at Silver Trident include: Herbed Labneh and Goat Cheese, Mushroom Duxelle, and Piquillo Pimento Cheese Spread.  Yummm (with 3Ms!!!)!

Some wine favorites from our time at Silver Trident Winery include:                  

• Apollo's Folly Rosé (2017) Complex, yet ready to play!  Ripe red raspberry and watermelon make this “Paris, in the 1920s, in a glass.”  Sipping this Rosé was the perfect compliment to the black and white photography of Tunbridge Gallery throughout the Silver Trident’s “Tasting Home.”  Classically clean, it knows what it wants.
• Benevolent Dictator Pinot Noir (2015) Classic Russian River Pinot Noir with flavorings of cherry, cola, and pomegranate.  All aged in French Oak, 40% of it new.  A great fireside wine with a calico cat in your lap!
• Playing With Fire (2015)  A red that changes every year… because Silver Trident is a small winery they consider this their take some chances, break some rules, and play with fire.  Remember how your parents always told you never to play with fire?  And remember how that just made it a little bit more exciting?  Silver Trident chooses a variety of berries, a variety of barrel toasts, and experiments with fermentation temperatures.  Playing with fire can spark some deliciously thrilling results (and create my favorite wine at their “Tasting Home.)”

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Hestan Vineyards

Life is Sweet in Napa Valley with Hestan Vineyards

By Kat Thomas, Edible Skinny

“God is in the details.”
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe


HESTAN VINEYARDS
Our first sipping adventure of the day was Hestan Vineyards, at their tasting room in Yountville.  Hestan Vineyards is a family-owned estate on the eastern slopes of the Napa Valley.  Their carefully-tended 110 acres are blanketed with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec producing 5,500 cases per year. 

At the door we were met by Michelle, an Australian expat getting her wine ya ya's out in the Valley and Grant, a self proclaimed “Cork Dork.”  Hestan Vineyards was born from the culinary passion of Stanley Cheng and his wife, Helen. Hestan is an amalgamation of Helen and Stan’s names (like Brangelina, but with the marriage intact..).  Stanley pioneered hard-anodized cookware in the 1970s.  The Meyer Corporation produces high-end, heavy-duty, customizable appliance from breakfast to back-of-house to the backyard.  “If you see him, please thank him for me,” pipped Kelly.

Taken together, Meyer affiliate factories comprise the world’s second largest cookware manufacturing operation, producing over 100 cookware lines distributed in over 30 countries.  The factories employ more than 6,400 people, manufacturing more than 42 million pans per year on average.  Retail partners include William Sonoma and Rachel Ray while the commercial side includes the cooktop grills at French Laundry and Bouchon.

For Hestan, their wine labels are a side hustle passion project.  Winemakers Jeff Gaffner and Thomas Rivers Brown translate these varietals into award-winning, limited-release wines for the Hestan, Meyer, and Stephanie labels.  Each has different techniques: Thomas Rivers Brown (whose name sounds like a country music jam band) who creates the Hestan and Meyer lines, is a purist who does believe in any blending.  In the past 15 years Brown has made more than 25 wines that have received perfect scores from Robert Parker Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator. (He’s not sure of the exact number, which seems in character for this laid-back Southerner..).  Winemaker Jeff Gaffner fully embraces the art of mixing varietals crafting the two labels named after Stan and Helen’s children: Stephanie (their only daughter) and Vincent Christopher (named after their two boys).. 

As Grant pointed out, wine is the opposite of food, the grapes don’t lie.  They can’t be covered over with spices.  Most crucial decision is how to pick in that 48 hour window.  And the person in charge of that decision and everything else is Angel Camarena, who has overseen the viticulture at Hestan Vineyards since planting the first vines in 1996.  Since then he has personally overseen every aspect of vineyard development and maintenance, in addition to managing the balance of the estate's 237-acre ranch property.


Angel is appropriately named!  Living on the property since the vines were planted, last year he fought the Napa/Sonoma wildfires like a captain going down with the ship.  Three times the cops came to remove Angel from the Hestan property for his safety and all three times he hid from in the vines he’d known for over twenty years ago.  Angel saved the Hestan Vineyards (and neighbor’s property) that night.  This year when his daughter got into an Ivy League school, Stan reciprocated by telling him not to worry about paying the bill!

Some of our favorite moments at Hestan included the wines:

• Hestan Chardonnay (2011)  Citrusy lightly oaked Chardonnay brought straight from the mouth of San Francisco Bay.  Clean and crisp, this wine is a tightrope of buttery and bright.  It’s plaid J. Crew shorts and a white yacht club sail.  Perfect late September picnic vibes.  Oh, and it’s been served at the White House 3 times now!

• Vincent Christopher Pinot Noir (2015) Valentine’s Day in a glass!  Hestan’s only non-estate wine grown on the Sonoma Coast at a 1200 foot elevation.  It’s a Pinot that drinks like a Cab.  This wine walks into a room quietly and soon becomes the most desired talked about guest.  This wine sits and speaks with you; knowing your secrets in a most tender beautiful way.

• Hestan Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon (2014) This is a November campfire wine, a “opulent and Hedonist” drink.  Hestan’s Flagship Cab., it received 96 points by Robert Parker Wine Advocate.  With triple black fruit flavors, it’s Edgar Allen Poe in a bottle, full of dark velvet and echoing beauty.  

Kat Thomas is the Editor in Chief of Edible Skinny, a site dedicated to making your life postcard worthy. She is also the CEO of the creative media company This Way Adventures. You can find more about both brands at http://www.thiswayadventures.com


 

Cannabis and Cabernet - The Marriage of Weed and Wine in Napa Valley

Cannabis and Cabernet - The Marriage of Weed and Wine in Napa Valley

By Kat Thomas, The Green Light District

Welcome to Art of Relaxation!  Napa Valley is famed for its dedication to leisure through its 400 wineries with tasting rooms in the Valley (600+ if you include Sonoma), 50 restaurants, 125 lodging properties, outdoor activities, events, and art galleries.  And in the last few months, Napa has expanded its enjoyment wheelhouse to include the ability to get cannabis delivered right to your door. 

There are no marijuana dispensaries in Napa County, but starting in August, the delivery only dispensary, Napa Valley Fumé, teamed up with Eaze, an online platform that lets people order marijuana products, allowing for cannabis within minutes of ordering.  Eaze was launched in 2014, but since it relies on local dispensaries to distribute and deliver products, it hadn’t served the main wine growing region of the United States of America (and one of the major wine regions of the world) till this partnership started.

Napa Valley has a fabled legacy of international renown, yet it is one of the smallest wine growing regions in the world; they produce just four percent of California’s wine grape harvest.  But that doesn’t stop the 3.5 million visitors per year from embracing Napa’s slow down lifestyle.  And now they’re able to slow down on another level with pre-rolls, vape cartridges, and edibles delivered right to their door.  

“There’s no actual dispensaries in Napa County,” notes Sheena Shiravi, Director of Consumer Communications at Eaze.  “Before Eaze started deliveries to Napa, Valley visitors and residents had to drive an hour to the closest dispensary.”  But now, cannabis can be headed to any private residence and hotel rooms (but not wineries) with just a few clicks on the app.

Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht, the COO of Napa Valley Fumé, couldn’t be happier.  “We really feel like the stars have aligned.  Both myself and Eric Sklar, Napa Valley Fumé CEO are recovered Vintners.  We bring 30-40 years experience of wine and hospitality to the world of Napa cannabis.  And we’re thoroughly happy to be ensconced in this new industry.”

Hambrecht has had two wine industry leadership roles: she was co-CEO of Belvedere Winery and later she was a VP at TastingRoom.com, leading the winery partnerships program.  She has over twenty five years of experience launching and operating both proprietary businesses and partnerships.  “Napa Valley Fumé is all about the world of top end Napa cannabis.”

“20% of Californians shop the black market for cannabis,” states Shiravi.  “So for everyone trying to push the legalization of cannabis, having Eaze come to wine country is one step closer to normalizing the marriage of weed and wine.”  “There’s a fun and educational path in front of consumers with a huge learning curve ahead,” notes Hambrecht.  “I’m a serial startup girl so getting rid of black market is what we’re all about.”

Napa Valley Fumé has a delivery only dispensary license (versus the license that allows for a brick and mortar building) located in Lake County approximately 40 minutes North of Calistoga.  They then use Eaze as a partner to distribute to their product to Napa Valley.  Eaze is not allowed to deliver to federal government building, schools, youth oriented addresses, but anyone else is open game!  “That’s the magic of Eaze as your delivery service,” chimes in Hambrecht.

And very soon cannabis, won’t just be delivered to Napa, it’s been grown there too!  “Napa is the premier agricultural region in the country,” notes Hambrecht, “we have better terroir than anyone one else there.”  And according to Hambrecht this includes the famed Humboldt county.  “Humboldt is great for hiding cannabis, not growing it.”  And Napa’s cannabis growing future is terroir dependent as the powers that be are pushing forward an ordinance that only allows for only the outdoor growing of cannabis in Napa Valley (no indoor grow rooms for this wine region). 

But how do psychologically marry weed and wine?  How do appease the fears of 400 wineries with tasting rooms in the Valley (600+ if you include Sonoma), that cannabis is going to kick wine to the curb?  Well one way is to get a bunch of people in the wine industry involved! Hambrecht is also a board member of the Napa Valley Cannabis Association, a 501c3, similar in concept to the Napa Valley Vintners Association  “It’s a who’s who of well established vintners on the board: Stephanie Honig is the CEO, Robert Mondavi is member too.  Everyone is very excited to cultivate here in Napa Valley!”

And there’s potential for everyone as the footprint for growing cannabis is much smaller than that of grapes.  That being said, the Napa Valley Cannabis Association is “Very Anti” to the concept of pulling grapes out of the ground to plant marijuana.  “We’re additive, not subtractive,” continues Hambrecht.  Plus cannabis test restrictions block the two plants from growing right next to each other.  “You can’t plant cannabis near the grapes because of drafting of sulfite sprays.  If you were to grow marijuana near the grapes you wouldn’t pass the state required lab testing.”

But what about a future where you can pull out your vape pen at a winery?  Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon as California does not allow cannabis and wine on the same premise.  But in these early days of the marriage of weed and wine, Eaze and Fumé will help shoulder the ability to embrace cannabis in Napa Valley and beyond.  Eaze recently expanded their wine region delivery area to include Sonoma County as well.  And with that in mind, they encourage you to indulge, both with both cannabis and Cabernet. 

Kat Thomas is the Co-Owner of The Green Light District, a Las Vegas/Los Angeles Cannabis entertainment company. She is also the CEO of the creative media company This Way Adventures.