Sunday, October 30, 2011

A Weekend in Wine Country

Ellyn and a group of her friends, who have been celebrating their birthdays together about every 5 years since their 50th, decided to get together in Napa, California this year for their 60th.  Several of them are wine collectors and they planned out tours of several wineries and even a dinner in a wine cellar.  It was a great weekend of food, fun and laughter, which can't be helped when this group gets together.

Nina, Moss and Peg talk wine.
We drove the RV up to Napa and parked in the Expo Center RV Park. We met up with Brian, Nina, Moss, and Peg for a picnic lunch and the first wine tastings. We are not big fans of wine, but we went along and enjoyed the company and watching them analyze what they were trying. Nina brought the picnic supplies and we kept leftovers and later meals in our RV fridge. The next day was two more wineries and the arrival of Henry and Harry. Geoff baled on the second winery, after a quick lunch in the parking lot, as he had had enough for the day.

On day three, we visited Porter Family Vineyards, owned by a former boss of Geoff's from IBM. It was a repeat visit for us, but our friends had not been there before and Tom gave us a really nice tour. We had a tasting in the cave and then got to sit on the veranda behind the house and look out on the wonderful view of Napa Valley. The final evening was dinner and wines in the wine cellar of Louis M. Martini and the sharing of a wine from 1960.

1960 Barbera
Sunday morning, we all got together again for brunch and then the final send-off.  We stayed around for an extra day so we didn't have to worry about having to pack up and move the RV while saying good bye to our friends. Monday, back to Pacifica and hopefully getting the transmission problem with the RV fixed.