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Franciscan Wine Stomping - September 2004
Newton Winery - September 2004
Pride Mountain Winery - September 2004
| Suggested Restaurants: Pere Jeanty (Pere Jeanty),.a Kuleto designed restaurant and Martini House; a Pat
Suggested Wineries: Paloma, Newton Newton , Peter Michael, Napa Cellars, Pride Mountain (a beautiful drive), and Frank's Family Wine (selected their wine at Brannan's- what a surprise- and then found out they crush their grapes at Rombauer - not sure what that means but the white wine tasted like Rombauer). PS - Later found out they bought Napa Cellars also - no wonder we selected their wines to run up against Rombauer! More history is at Frank Family Vineyards.
In the Healdsburg area we would suggest Seghesio Seghesio Family Vineyards , a new up and comer old Vine Zinfandel as written up in Wine Spectator and mentioned to us several times in our research.
Attempted but unsuccessful visits that I would suggest for another trip include Peter Michael, Rudd, Kuleto and Paloma. Paloma just scored number one in Wine Spectator Magazine. We also drove to the Newton Winery at the top of the mountain but couldn't get in for wine tasting. The grounds and view make this a perfect possibility for the next run and also for picnicking, if desired.
Possible Wine Dinner or Wine & Food Affair: The Schweiger Winery is holding a wine dinner the evening of November 6, 2004 in their wine cellar Schweiger Vineyards.
The Russian River Wine Road is having its 6th annual Wine & Food Affair November 6 & 7, 2004 with about 20 wineries participating Events. 9/4/04 Blog: We arrived in Yountville at about 4:30PM and being hungry we hit the Buchon Bar for a traveler At the bar we got some great input on fairly new wineries (at least to us) that were opened mostly That evening we went to the new Pere Jeanty restaurant (another Kuleto design) for a drink and dessert and immediately made a reservation for Sunday night. The atmosphere was a knock out and dinner lived up to our expectations. We're thinking we're lucky- we just drove into town, found a great place to stay and immediately found probably the best restaurant in town (opened 6 months). We are on a roll. 9/5/04 This was winery research day. We first hit the Franciscan to watch a wine stomp in progress and then hit Napa Cellars; a new winery to us recommended by Lonnie (the guy who recommended Ceja to us last year) and it was a hit. We bought Chardonnay to taste test at home against Rombauer. The reds were good also. We also hit ZD and Rombauer and then the Martini House for a travel stop. At the Martini House we met Scott who also turned us on to a number of newer winery possibilities. This night we tried out the Napa Valley Lodge- also very good; a lot cheaper and still quite nice. 9/6/04 Today we hit Plumpjack, Cakebread, Newton, Robert Keenan, Pride Mountain and Schweiger wineries.
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Robert Keenan Wine Crushing - September 2004
Schweiger Winery - September 2004
Villagio Landscaping - September 2004 | ||
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Kuleto owned restaurant with a 600 bottle wine list (Pic to right 
and to find a place to stay. Surprisingly, the first three hotels we called all had availability so we picked the Villagio, since we knew the grounds were nice and we haven't stayed there before. It lived up to our expectations and the grounds were fantastic so I took a lot of pictures since I ultimately want our grounds to look something like this when finished.
by appointment. We tried them over the next two days (without appointments) and found most of them open so we researched.
