Wine games.

With a particular bottle of wine in mind, I headed into Vinoland's wine cellar for a look-see.  Yikes!  I didn't realise that there is so much crappy, old wine in there.  There's a lot of good stuff, but there is a fair percentage of wine that needs to disappear - down the toilet if necessary.  Then, I had a thought.  I should select a bottle a week, taste the wine and post about it even if the wine is awful and undrinkable.
I remembered that I like doing series/themes of posts.  Amongst some in the past, there have been; Winery Christmas Lights (WCL), Napa Valley's American Viticultural Area Signs (AVA Sign), Wines of the World (WOTW) and, Thud's personal favourite, Week of Weeds (WOW).  Titter, Titter.  (To see all posts related to these series, click on respective labels below.)
As my search continued, dodging cobwebs (some with spiders in them), stubbing my toes on cases and almost triggering a small avalance of teetering bottles, I had fun trying to recall the provenance of individual bottles I espied.  Where did I buy this bottle?  Was it a gift?  Have I been to this winery?  Memories, mental images and single words popped into my head like a game of word association.  Or rather, in this instance, wine word association (WWA).  A ha!  A new idea for yet another (short) series formed in my mind.  One wine, one word.  I grabbed five random (local) wines with which to start.
Never did find the original bottle of wine that I was looking for.
Stay tuned.

Winery Christmas Lights 14.

Just to keep things interesting, I sometimes take a different way to and from TWWIAGE.  Call me crazy.  There is so much going on this time of year in the valley that I had forgotten that Trefethen Family Vineyards always has a fun Christmas light display on the corner of Highway 29 and Oak Knoll Avenue.  I saw Trefethen's Christmas lights on the way home from work on Wednesday night; a rustic buckboard with brightly illuminated Christmas packages.  Thanks, Trefethen Family.
I finally got my own Christmas tree up today.  I had wanted to get my tree up last week, but stuff got in the way.
Let's get this party started!

Winery Christmas Lights 13.

A star, a star, dancing in the night, With a tail as big as a kite.
The folks over at Meteor Vineyard seem to be filled with the Christmas spirit, the gate to their vineyard is very festive.  Meteor's shooting-star fairy lights made me and Vinodog 2 feel very exultant on our walk today. 
Grapevines everywhere are naked now.  The onslaught of rain has beaten every last leaf to the ground, but I'm trying not to let it bother me.  I put on a silly, but festive, wooly hat that I purchased when I was home last month to walk V2 this afternoon.  If silly is synonymous with festive, then I am it.
I have never had a Meteor Vineyard wine.  Meteor produce a Cabernet Sauvignon, of course, that sells northwards of $225 per bottle, so I probably won't be trying it any time soon.  But I do appreciate that the owners of Meteor Vineyard observe festiveness throughout the year.

Winery Christmas Lights 12.

One doesn't have to actually go into Mumm Napa Valley to enjoy their Christmas lights because their twinkling, light-bedecked sign, situated on the Silverado Trail, is in plain sight for all driving past to see.  And rather festive it is too, I might add.  But whilst in the vicinity it would be rude not to pop in and do a  quick bubbly tasting, wouldn't it?  Which is exactly what my TWWIAGE co-workers and I did this afternoon (with a little bubbly-retail therapy to follow).  Always a great way to get in the Christmas mood, I tasted three very different sparkling wines and enjoyed them all.  So, I bought some. 
Sparkle on little lights.

Winery Christmas Lights 11.

Well, it's not exactly a winery.  And it's not exactly the greatest of photographs.  But it's good enough to showcase this festive Rudolph, with his red-bulbed nose, who reappears every Christmas above the Silverado Trail to humour me on my drive home from TWWIAGE.  Situated atop a hillside vineyard in the Stags Leap District, this is the 8th year in a row that I have enjoyed this particular electronic display of cervine-cheerfulness.  I have no idea who is responsible for this random act of Christmas merriment, but I am really glad that their sense of whimsy repeatedly delivers a Yuletide treat for this particular Napa Valley commuter.

Winery Christmas Lights 10.

I usually take the photographs for my Winery Christmas Lights (WCL) series after dark to showcase the Christmas lights in all of their glistering glory.  Unfortunately, the Christmas trees at Darioush Winery, on the Silverado trail, are behind locked gates at night and thus inaccessible to me and my camera (unless I have a telephoto lens).  So, this week I decided to revisit a previous WCL to get up close and personal, so to speak, with the winery's decorations.

The architectural style of Darioush is not one of my favourites in the valley, I have to say.  Designing a winery building in California to look like a temple in Persepolis (in ancient Persia) works I suppose if you are Iranian, and proprietor Darioush Khaledi is indeed Iranian.  Khaledi grew up in Shiraz, (yes, it has been suggested that that is where the actual grape of the same name originated), apparently fell in love with wine at an early age, became rich, started a winery, etc.  Darioush specialises in Bordeaux varietal wines, but they do make a very nice Viognier also.  But, back to the lights.  

Darioush has four Christmas trees, bedecked with garlands made from large leaves (Magnolia fraseri perhaps), some a natural dried brown and some sprayed totally silver.  Three of the trees have blue lights and one has white (the lights in previous years have all been blue).  Blue lights always look a bit cold and austere to me, and somehow leave me feeling a little well, blue.  Something more red, green and sparkly is more in order if I am to be completely honest, but I am appreciative that this winery made any effort at all.

Winery Christmas Lights 9.

This winery, Peju Province, is in my mind notable not for the wines they produce, but for the strangely pruned sycamore trees that line the winery's driveway.  These poor, pathetic trees lean northwards in unison all year long as if besieged by a constant, raging wind from the south.  It doesn't seem right somehow that each Platanus occidentalis is pruned to within an inch of it's life.  Where are the outraged tree-huggers?  However, come Christmas-time it's a different story.  Bedecked in glowing, red fairy lights these trees suddenly become a wonderful sight to behold and one tends to forget that the wines within are not so spectacular.

Winery Christmas Lights 8.

Not all wineries have a tasting room in situ so to speak.  Hill Family Estate is one such winery. Located on Yountville's restaurant row, just a stone's throw away from Bouchon, Bistro Jeanty, and the famed French Laundry, Hill Family's tasting room looked very inviting on a recent, rainy December night.  It's a pity I was too busy to stop, it looked so cosy. The date palm, in the background, looks like it was added for an extra Californian effect!

Winery Christmas Lights 7.

This 30' plus tall pine tree stands tall, and proud, all year long at Cliff Lede Vineyards located on the Yountville Crossroad, but here it is resplendent in it's Christmas finery.  Okay, so the lights are placed in a rather slapdash fashion but readers, really, have any one of you ever decorated so tall a tree?  As I head south towards home on the Silverado Trail this cheery, welcome sight reminds me every year that someone owns an awfully tall cherry picker.

Winery Christmas Lights 6.

The house that Robert Mondavi built: no, not his namesake winery but his actual home.  Previous posts have highlighted Christmas lights on commercial winery buildings, but this post is dedicated to a particular Napan's abode.  On a large knoll, overlooking the Stag's Leap District AVA, is the site where the late Robert Mondavi built his home, high above the valley and vineyards he made famous world wide.  A genius in marketing and promotion, Mondavi arguably made the Napa Valley the success it is today.
A cheery site on my drive home from work, the roof top Christmas tree can actually be seen as a red dot from the steps of the winery where I am gainfully employed some five miles north.  Thank you, to whomever, for continuing such a welcome, joyous tradition.

Winery Christmas Lights 5.

Situated on the corner of the Oakville Crossroad and the Silverado Trail, this festive tree twinkles and sparkles night after night for countless passing motorists to enjoy.  Erected by the kindly proprietor of Rudd Vineyards & Winery, this relatively small gesture of installing a Christmas tree in a high profile area, to be shared by many, goes a long way to embodying the true spirit of the season.  Rudd doesn't just stop with Christmas, recently they had on display a massive carved pumpkin for Halloween and coming up soonish will be a large arrow-pierced heart, they place on the same corner annually, for our St. Valentine's Day delectation.  The Christmas tree just happens to be my favourite.

Winery Christmas Lights 4.

Hurrah!  My finals are over and now I can begin to celebrate Christmas properly.  It was seemingly a very long, and stressful, semester but it is finally over.

Continuing on from where I left off on December 22nd last year, I am posting about the Christmas lights at Darioush.  This is not my favourite style of architecture for a winery, but I have had one of their Cabernet Sauvignons and it was very pleasant and that's what counts.  I do, however, like the Christmas tree at the entrance: the lights are a deeper blue when viewed with the naked eye, and it always cheers me on my way home from work.

Winery Christmas Lights 3.

In comparison to my last post, the lights at this winery are positively understated, but very tasteful. Tucked away on the Oakville Crossroad I nearly missed this staid display of electric merriment. The Groth winery is stylised California mission, based on the architectural impact the Roman Catholic church had on early 'Alta California'.
Over a period of 54 years, beginning with Mission San Diego, established in 1769, 21 missions were established by the Spanish stretching 650 miles along the 'El Camino Real'.  All were established near the coast and were designed to be one days walk apart.
Franciscan monk Junípero Serra is generally credited with planting the first grapes for wine production in California at Mission San Diego. Father Serra's grapevines, of uncertain genetic heritage, had originally been introduced from Spain to Mexico. The original European strain having been lost, the grapes were simply called Mission grapes since the Catholic missions were where they were generally grown.
The final mission at Sonoma, in the Sonoma Valley, has proved to be an ideal location for grape production; fertile soil, maritime fog, and a mild and sunny climate.  And over the hill, here in Napa, Vinogirl is enjoying a glass of wine and her own Christmas lights.

Winery Christmas Lights 2.

Famous for their White Zinfandel, Sutter Home winery should get more recognition for the sheer number of fairy lights they fire up every Christmas. Look at those palm trees! So Californian.
Besides the obvious amount of wattage their fairy lights consume, Sutter Home should be commended for the volume of White Zinfandel they sell worldwide. I have had people visit me in the past and they have wanted to visit Sutter Home, not Caymus, not Phelps...Sutter Home. I'm just glad people are drinking wine and keeping me in a job!

Winery Christmas Lights 1.

There are just two roads that run the length of the Napa Valley, north-south. Highway 29 on the west and the Silverado Trail on the east. A quick drive up the Trail and down Hwy 29 this time of year delivers 'fairy light' gratification to Vinogirl.
Now some wineries just don't photograph well so I am just going to post a few that do.
This winery is quite new, (18 months old), and quite frankly, their wine is nothing to, well, blog about...but their fairy lights are quite fetching. In true Napa Valley style, the trees are not Christmas trees, but olive trees...but I think they look brilliant anyway. Look at the shadow the 'Black Stallion' casts, it's almost as big as the one V2's ears create!