There is a refrain among people who talk to me about their upcoming visit to California. They want to watch the bread formed into animal shapes at Boudin's on Fisherman's Wharf, they want to ride a cable car, and they want to have a couple of Irish coffees at the Buena Vista. But most of all they want to go to Napa. They desperately have to go to Napa. If they don't go to Napa they will surely die. Or worse: they'll have just a so-so time in California.
Everyone who hasn't done it yet wants to do it and do it big. They've heard the stories and they are determined to outdo their braggy friends. Everyone who has done it, wants to do it again, because they have their favorite winery now and had such a good time that they own the experience now. They want to bolster it, feed that ownership, fatten it up and adopt it into their family.
I'm starting to run out of excuses to not go to Napa.
I can't just self-inflict a twisted ankle or sabotage a bridge. Again. I can't generate an allergy to sulfites and fruit-based beverages. And I can't seem to convince anyone that it makes so much more sense to cut to the end product and just go to a regular wine bar, which is right around the corner.
I'm usually not in charge enough to put the kibosh on a day in Napa.
The problem with Napa is there's just entirely too much wine there. It's a huge area. You could drive forever and it's just grapes and wine, wine and grapes.
I make the effort and try to be accommodating, because before I moved here, I visited my sister and her husband here in SF and they set the bar really high. They had lived here 20 years and they gleefully traipsed us around town, put us on various quaint forms of public transportation, and gave mini-lectures on historically significant landmarks, all the while smiling and taking our pictures. And they took us to Napa on a 10-hour wine tasting that, if on Yelp, would have rated 5 stars plus a few constellations.
So now I'm in a position to drum up that kind of enthusiasm for visitors.
Them: "Want to go to Napa? We'd love to go to Napa! Oh, yes, Napa!!"
Me: "I'd like a nap. The nap part of that sounds good."
Napa is where you start drinking wine at 9 a.m. in little sips like you're playing an upscale drinking game and by noon you're buying a $35 potato sandwich just to soak up the alcohol. These winery people are not just wine experts. They are enablers, pushers and captain of Team Alcoholism. They have no problem encouraging you to mix reds, whites and pinks. They over-serve you, and not once do they ask who's driving. They don't care at all about your health or well being.
The first time we went to Napa, my husband and I drank everything that was put in front of us at seven different wineries over the course of the day. We thought that was what was expected of us and we were right. The second time we went to Napa - we were still drunk from the first time. I'm not the first person to have thrown up behind the fountain at Cakebread, I assure you.
A lot of my Napa memories are fuzzy. I have a vague recollection of eating some kind of picnic lunch at a vineyard with huge statues of sobbing women, where a big yellow lab begged for food. And I think I talked to a little kid and he taught me some Spanish words. That sounds like me, so that part probably happened. I think I wanted to curl up in a corner of the Rutherford caves. Or was that just the basement? I may have wandered off. I asked if I could use the swimming pool at one place. I thought it was just this free, open public pool. I was so enamored by that concept that I forgot I didn't have a swimsuit with me.
Sometimes I'm let loose in the gift shop at a winery. I have discovered wine contraptions in the car with price tags on them that I assume I did not shoplift.
My husband always dresses up for Napa and in that sunny, bucolic setting he looks like he's running for office. So I spend a lot of time taking high quality photos of him with his arms folded with the rolling hills and valleys behind him.
"Stand over here, Senator," I tell him. If he does ever decide to run for something, I've got all the brochure pictures he'll need. He'll have to explain why there is a merlot-stained finger in front of the lens. His official photographer had been in Napa way too long.
Now, when pressed to go to Napa by visiting friends, I do things a little differently. We hit only a couple of wineries, three at the most. I drink a lot of water that I bring from the car. I feel no obligation to drink wines that are too sweet or too crisp.
Wine guy: "This next one is our April 2015 Shiraz. The terroir is the side hill over there by the shed. And for this unique wine, we pick the grapes before they're even formed. We basically chop up the leaves and make wine out of it. We pair this with Funyuns. It's perfect for binge drinking."
Me: "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
And when I've had a sufficient amount, I say, "Give my share to the senator over there."
