Morning 1: Balloons and wine

Up over the grapes, then all about them

Inside our balloon

Napa's sunrise

Framed balloon

Our first morning, we decided ahead of time we were going to get up very early and try a hot-air balloon ride. Since we were mostly three hours ahead, that mean the 5:30 launch time was more like 8:30, making it that much more palatable. But driving in the direction of Napa while it's still dark means your still know it's early.

On the other hand, being 1,000 feet up when the sun rises over the hills is pretty nice too. Apparently, we got one of the first clear days in the valley that they'd had in a while. There were very few clouds so the balloons were quite striking against the blue sky and the brown earth. From the south, the fog started rolling in and even caught one of the later-launching craft.

They said we probably only floated about two miles, but we were up for about an hour before coming down in a vineyard. Apparently, some wineries are touchy about that sort of thing, but others understand that the balloons need very little space to land and will try very hard not to damage anything. I wonder if they don't also figure that there will be some goodwill from the balloon companies to their passengers that will bring more people in for tours. Plus, even though they may technically own the land, I get the feeling that they know everyone's in the valley together so they might as well share.

We went back for the champagne brunch, which was really more of an extension of the continental breakfast they had prepared earlier. Don't get me wrong, the chicken wings were fine and the orange pound cake was quite tasty, but it's not like they brought out the omlette station or carved a giant ham.

Since we were there anyway, we decided to tour around the valley, checking in the various wineries to see what we could learn. Some people apparently come to do nothing but tour wineries, so there are plenty of opinions about which ones to do and which to skip.

Upon some recommendations, we headed for Mondavi, figured we'd stop at Niebaum-Coppola (mostly for the movie memoribilia, not so much the vinting) and then go up to Sterling, which supposedly had one of the better self-guided tours.

The Mondavi tour definitely had the best wine-making explanations, touting a bit about how their methods led to top-quality wine. (Everyone was pretty equally dismissive of the quantity-focsued methods of the Central Valley.) But they were probably the most sincere (maybe it helps to have a person leading the tour) and most grape-focused.

At Niebaum-Coppola, we wound up deciding against a tour since it seemed this was less about the wine. There were bottles of a rose called Sofia everywhere and plenty of history about the movie careers of the Coppola clan, including Nick Cage, and the history of the Niebaum family, which I'm pretty sure I've forgotten. They haven't been making wine there very long, but based on a tour of the gift shop, they do seem to be willing to put the Coppola name on just about anything, no matter how tangentially related to wine. Oh well.

At Sterling, the tour is "highlighted" by video presentations by the owner, who I assume to be the favored son of they guy who founded the place. It's not that they were bad. There was some good information there and he was reasonably good. But it was obvious this video recitation was not his first career choice. And they were too long. If nothing else, spring for twice as many screens and make each video half as long. And when you say your excited about something, even if its the toasting of French oak barrels for again, looking like you're excited wouldn't be out of line. Their tasting was conducted in many stages, starting at the front door, then at the patio door after your tour, then into the gift shop and out onto a shaded deck where, if they don't trip over each other, various staff will do wine tricks and tell you about the featured selections. All this with a view high above the valley. See, I didn't tell you about the Swiss-made gondola ride to the top. All together, definitely worth the price of admission.

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