Gorgeous new tasting room in downtown Napa!  The picture does not do justice to this Great Gatsby meets wild west saloon space.  I was walking home from dinner with a few friends the other night and came across Capp Heritage.  Clearly it is still a work in progress (as also evidenced by their website that has Greek type in place of copy !) but once they are finished it could be a fun place.  We walked in around 8:45pm and the place became quite busy.  A tasting was $10 so we saddled up to the bar.  Unfortunately nothing remarkable to report on the wine front.  The Capp family has been growing grapes in the valley for years and selling the likes of Caymus but this seems to be their first foray into wine making.  Worth stopping for a glass of their cab — especially if you are wearing a flapper dress! 

#10 at week 10!  Cheers!

Yesterday I went to meet my “Napa Neighbors” Kathy and Mike who were out doing their duty as Napa valley citizens and checking out a few places up on the Silverado Trail.  We met at Pine Ridge.  The first red we tried was their 2010 Charmstone,  a 97% cab that was quite charming, which is named after some of the artifacts found in the fields that were actually fertility symbols left by the early settlers.  It got better from there with a parade of cabernets including their 2011 Napa Valley cab (very light), their 2010 Rutherford which was a bit tannic for me and their 2010 Oakville which was lovely.  One thumb up.

We got to chatting with a few other “Neighbors” who were also out for the day and got a few recommendations / ideas from them.

After consulting the list of 400+ wineries that we have not been to and the words of our new friends we decided to check out Napa Cellars.  Napa Cellars is part of Trinchero.  Napa Cellars is in a shared tasting room on route 29 with Folie A Deux.  Flashback moment.  Many years ago I used to go camping with a few friends at Bothe Napa back in the mid ’90s.  I recalled that we went to a tasting room up in northern St. Helena all those years ago that was Folie A Deux.  Well I do have a few brain cells left and they confirmed there was one in a little house up valley when  “two wine-loving psychiatrists established a boutique winery”.  So I couldn’t taste that!  I already had all those years ago.  So I decided to taste the Napa Cellars wines.

Not sure how we made it through the very short tasting list.  The tasting room is a small domed building that amplifies noise.  It was filled with a group that could have passed as the cast and crew of Jersey Shore.  Oh well — focus.  Pretty uneventful.  They poured a 2012 Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Cab Sav.   I made no notes other than Kathy’s comment that pretty much summed it up.  “If you are young and want cheap wine this is the place to be.”  One thumb down.

Keep on tasting!

On track with week 9 and 9!  Cheers!