Napa Valley: An illumination into our lack of sophistication

We left Sugarloaf Ridge state park and made our way into Napa Valley. The road we took went up and down and around mini mountains. By now, we know there's usually a picture of a truck going down a slope, followed by a sign informing us of the slope percentage and the distance it will last. So far we'd only encountered 6% and 7% death ramps. Up ahead we see the first sign, so both of us lean forward:

"What is it? What issss iiiitttt? OH MY GOD! What is that? Eleven?! What? That's a goddamned double digit!"
We reached the bottom of the hill, breathed a sigh of relief that we were still intact and turned towards eachother, commenting loftily that it wasn't so bad. A little while later, I saw a sign that said "Trucks use lower gear", another indication that the road is about to plummet downhill. Again, Ang and I looked up as the slope sign came up. And screamed. "TWELVE?!" Yeeeeah. It was that bad.

Duckhorn was the classiest piece of class that ever did class, so we had no right to be there. We walked in and went up to the concierge (seriously, the concierge) desk to reserve a wine tasting. It was $30, and we shared the tasting because paying $60 for a few sips each was ridiculous.

Do me a favor: pinch the bridge of your nose, tilt your head up, and say "Yess, uhommn, I would like to compliment your fine sun-drenched meadow notes and rustic leather tannins. Uhhmmmn, yess. "

We hated it. Our server looked off in the distance as he rattled off this such and such was grown in the higher altitude of the pinchaloaf mountains where the thick skin of the grapes preserves the full-bodied structure and it was aged for thismany years in a cask and thismany years in the bottle and this only produced 200 cases and ......oh my god, just pour the damn glass. And quickly, please, we've got shit to do.

After we finished the (overpriced, crappy) wine, we were met with a problem: Do we tip? Oh god, we have no cash! We gave it all to Steve! Well, we still have the quarters that he didn't want....shit. What do we do? Do we take these little cards that describe the wines? Do we have to finish the wine? I don't want to finish the wine. We paid for it. But we have driving to do and this wine sucks, I don't want the rest of it. Is everyone else finishing the wine? Did anyone else tip?

We booked it as soon as he disappeared around a corner, whistling inconspiculously all the way to the car, and drove away. On the way to the next winery, we googled "Wine tasting for dummies" and found out, no, you don't tip. And no, you don't have to finish it. In fact, you can spit it out. Apparently. These sophisticated mofos sit there sloshing wine around their mouths for 10 seconds to get the full aerated flavor...and then spit into a bucket. Good to know. Off to the next winery!

Next up: Heitz Cellars.

We breathed a sigh of relief as a man walked out in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. There was a smallish bar with a few people serving the tastings. We were served by a really nice woman (shock! horror! a nice Californian! Probably was from Oregon) that understood we knew nothing about the wine. She told Ang that the wine can taste like anything she wants it to taste like, and that she had applied here because it was described as "unpretentious." She assured us we would love the port and hoooooly cowzilla she was right. We bought too many bottles. Worth-it five! It was like an explosion of sweet deliciousness in our faces. That is the official wine tasting term, by the way. Onward!

Next: V. Sattui

Bryce (Oregon blown glass shop guy) told us that this winery produced Madeira. It was PACKED. Apparently there was some barbecue going on. It's probably always like that. We wander in, snag grapes from the vines overhanging the walkways, elbow our way to into the tasting room, and plant ourselves at the counter. Our server ignored us, then eventually sidled over and told us we could pick 6 wines for $10. We picked out a Riesling to start with, and it was uhmayzing. We stand there and wait for the guy to come back. He ignores us. Eventually, we decided to cross our hands and stare expectantly at him until he paid attention to us. Eventually, he throws "You girls need to throw the rest of your glass into the spittoon if you want me to know you want your next wine." over his shoulder. Fine. We toss it into the spittoon. Then he ignored us some more, and finally came back to us. We ordered another wine, and he cut us off and said that we wanted this somehingsomething wine instead and poured it for us. Oookay.

Dammit, he was right. It was good. I started to ask if he could suggest some good reds, and he spun mid-sentence and walked off. I HATE CALIFORNIANS. Then he came back, and we tried to tell him how he was right, but he walked away again in mid-sentence. We gave up at this point, and decided to enjoy ourselves and not get hung up on shitty Californians, because they all are and that would be too much damn effort.

We eventually manage to get him to pour us a wine called Angelica, which we had ordered for obvious reasons. It was easily, no contest, hands down, the best wine we had ever had. We stared at eachother in wonder, cried about the price, and ordered 3 bottles of it. And a bottle of this, and that, and the other thing. Ang later said, "I am lumping the entire sum of California against that wine."

$400 later, we have no idea what the fuck happened.

There's another box from Heitz, but you'd think we'd have more to show for all this.

We start wandering around for dinner and find some hoidytoidy marketplace to park in, but mostly we pulled in to avoid the cop following us because we feel naturally guilty when they're looking at us and we're convinced California is the state we'll get a ticket in.

The marketplace was very pretty, and we stopped into a chocolate shop that had the most gorgeous little chocolates ever.

"They look like galaxies!"

Then we wandered upstairs, and went in a few overpriced stores until we we walked into one and the guy running it came up and informed us that we had to leave. No "Can I help you with anything?" or, possibly, "welcome to our store," but no. We got "Ladies, we're closing."

Ang ranted down the stairs about hating California some more, and then we swung into a store and asked the lady when she was closing. She told us 5:30, we asked when that was, and she told us that it was 5 minutes ago, but she was busy doing inventory so we can stay as long as we want. Another nice Californian! What is that, 3 out of the 300 we've run into? Nice. Way to be golden, California. To quote Angie's father, "California would be nice if it weren't for all the damn Californians."

We agree.