Time for wine

The last day of an exhausting, busy but fun week on America’s west coast. The work trip began in Los Angeles on Sunday in 90-degree heat. There were meetings Monday morning downtown, the afternoon seeing a client in Santa Monica and the evening in Newport Beach. It was a long day and sleep-wise one I never recovered from struggling with the time difference, only last night sleeping for more than five hours, our final night, just in time to leave for home. Of course.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were in the great city of San Francisco, comfortably in my Top Five of American cities. Meetings started early were back to back and ended with great dinners and too much to eat and drink. We wrapped up the trip yesterday with a day in Napa Valley, 17 of us travelling out over the Golden Gate Bridge on the Gillig Bus, to St Helena for our first tasting stop, the beers on the bus serving as a base. 

Orin Swift has for a long time been one of my favourite producers of wine, especially their bold reds, and in particular Prisoner, which owner David Philley sold to investors in 2013, because the production demands were geting too great and he wanted the opportinity to reinvest in his boutique winery including a new tasting room.

The Orin Swift tasting room was in the middle of the beautful wine town of St Helena and we tasted all of their favourites – Papillon, Machete, Palermo, Mannequin and Mercury Head. All fantastic and each served in a bottle with labels too cool for school and all designed by Philley himself . 

Next stop was Alpha Omega not far from St Helena and we had lunch here and supped on a wonderful Chardonnay and their Proprietary Red served to us by the knowledgable and erudite Joe. AO is a private producer and only sells their wines on site or via their wine club to U.S. residents only, which was a shame.

Our third and final stop off was at Goosecross in Yountville. A new pictureque tasting room with amazing views. We hung out on their deck chatting and drinking with their vineyards being the back drop. It was tough to decide but their merlot was my favourite. 

The whole day was glued together by our Gillibus and driver Eddie. What a laugh, what a day.