Napa - Aug 2012

The Dodds Family

For Keith's Dad's 70th birthday, we gave him the gift of a family weekend in Napa and dinner at the French Laundry.  The gift was given in December (at Christmas), was planned for March but rescheduled to Labor Day weekend with the birth of Baby Boone (Dad's birthday was in April).  He really dragged out this birthday celebration! 

Accommodation
We rented a house in Napa - 435 Montecito - from Homeaway.  The house was just off the Silverado Trail so a pretty good location - though we spent most of our time commuting to Yountville. The house had five bedrooms and three baths with OK decor. The house was clean, spacious and functional in a quiet neighborhood.

Activities
We flew out from Denver to Oakland later on the Thursday evening, renting a car and arriving at the house at about midnight. Keith's family had arrived earlier that day so we just headed to our assigned bedroom in the basement and fell asleep.

The Limo Tour of Wineries

Paraduxx Winery

We were the first people up on Friday morning and went out for a walk to get in front of the weekend calories.  Shawna mapped the walk so we would stop by one of the local Starbucks, which we arrived at 45 minutes into the walk.  As we were sitting on the patio nursing our coffees, Keith's parents arrived to get their own round of coffee.  We continued the walk and got back to the house in time to get showered for the limo picking us up.  Hector, the driver, did a great job shuttling us around to a variety of vineyards: Paraduxx, Clif Lede, V Sattui, Heitz, Opus, and Port Works. We loved the ambiance at Paraduxx - we had a whole table to ourselves and a great host named Josh - it was a great tasting.  We liked the wines at Paraduxx and Clif Lede and bought some to ship home and bring to Rak and Sim.  Lunch was the traditional picnic at V Sattui - we got a few cheeses, meats, and french bread and grabbed a table outside.  We finished the day at 4pm and immediately showered and headed out to dinner. 

Lunch at V Sattui

View on Hike - Stebbins Cold Canyon

On Saturday, we hiked Stebbins Cold Canyon along Lake Berryessa - about a one hour drive from the house.  It was a tough but beautiful hike with great views of the lake from the top.  We unfortunately did not bring enough water but no one passed out. The hike was 5 miles long and about 1800 ft in elevation gain, taking 3 hours and 20 minutes. We returned home in time to shower and nap before heading out to the big dinner of the trip.  Prior to walking in to the Laundry, we wandered around the gardens and farm across the road where many of their fruits and vegetables are grown.

Dodds Family on the Hike

We had planned Sunday morning to be leisurely which was a great idea.  We went for walk and then met up for lunch with the family in Yountville. We then did an afternoon bike tour with Napa Valley Bike Tours, stopping for wine tasting at Clos du Val (where the guy who poured our tasting was rude), Monticello (syrah was good) and Silenus - this was a really cool tasting room where it is an aggregation of 12 different vintages in one place.  We went to an early dinner and called it a night.

Ready for the Bike Tour

On Monday, Graham and Margaret headed to the airport at 9:00am and we left shortly after with Keith's parents.  The first stop was the Sonoma Market to grab some cheese, then we drove to Jim and Maryann's house to see them for the day.  After saying our hellos, we quickly made sandwiches for lunch and the six of us headed to Bodega Head at Bodega Bay for a hike.  The last time Keith was in Bodega Bay, he was with his friend Peter in 1989 - a very different experience this time!  The coast was much colder with fog all over - amazing what a difference a few miles makes.  We hiked out to the beach, where Jim and Maryann produced a couple of bottles of wine to accompany the lunch.  We hiked back to the car and then headed back to the house, where we went for a walk around the vineyard and then had some wine on the deck before having rack of lamb for dinner.  We left the house just after 7pm and made it into San Francisco to Rak and Sim's house at a reasonable hour.

Bodega Head

Restaurants
Bouchon - The first of our Thomas Keller meals.  We started with Lobster Salad and Lamb Sausage and shared the Pork Belly with Polenta for an entree.  The restaurant was smaller than we expected.  Great ambiance and food.

Bouchon

Menu at French Laundry

French Laundry - Ah, the main event of the weekend! This is generally considered impossible to get into, but we were able to reserve the private dining room 9 months ahead of time.  The dining format is a tasting menu where we were able to give our dietary restrictions.  While we had many courses, we never felt stuffed - the dinner was outstanding!  Our meal included Oysters and Pearls, Salad of Summer Melon, Sauteed Fillet of Mediterranean Lubina, Sweet Butter-Poached Maine Lobster Mitts, Salmon Creek Farms Pork Belly, Marcho Farm Nature-Fed Veal, Vendeen Bichonne, Plum-Ginger Soda, and Chocolate Pudding Pie.  We requested a wine pairing at a particular price point, so we enjoyed Gaston Chiquet Blanc de Blancs d'Ay Grand Cru MV, Spreitzer Reisling Oestricher Lenchen Kabinett Rheingau 2012, Pazo de Senorans Albarino Rias Baixas 2011, Walter Hansel Chardonnay Estate Russian River Valley 2009, Radio-Coteau Pinot Noir Alberigi Vineyard Russian River Valley 2010, Araujo Meritage Altagracia Napa Valley 2009, Joseph Sabon Chateauneuf-du-Pape Clos du Mont-Olivet Rhone Valle 2009, and Smith-Woodhouse Late-Bottled Vintage Oporto 2000. 

Bouchon Bakery - The rest of the family waited in line for 45 minutes for lunch and we arrived just in time for them to get the food.  Each of us had a tomato, brie and basil baguette. 

Press - This was a game-day call - we had originally planned to go to La Toque but Graham had met the owners at Press when they visited his restaurant a few days prior so we we changed plans.  The dinner was a gorge fest. The owners presented us a bottle of champagne and some apps when we showed up.  We then had heirloom tomatoes with mozzarella and also the bacon sampler which was really just on the bar menu but they allowed in the restaurant.  The bacon dish was literally that - 8 different slices of bacon - heaven!  For our main course we shared walu fish and did the side dishes family style: Truffle Mac, French Fries, Mushrooms, and Corn.  We also shared desserts of strawberry shortcake, cheesecake and a ginormous slice of chocolate cake.  In addition to the champagne, we had a couple of amazing bottles of Kongsgaard, which is one of our favorite chardonnays.

Shawna and Keith @ French Laundry

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