Spring Mountain Hop (or, Why tiny tasting rooms are so much better than visitng Wine Corp. Inc.)

Our Father's Day Napa Trip was officially a book club meeting. After reading travelogues, essays and historical accounts that all related to wine, we wanted to head up as a group and either (1) espouse our new knowledge in front of an appreciative pouring audience, or (2) get really drunk. As it turned out, we accomplished neither of these, but we did (3) learn a lot about growing great grapes and making something quaffable. So it wasn't a waste of time, by any means.


Our first two stops in the valley were at Plumpjack and Duckhorn, respectively, and man were they forgettable. Typical tasting room experience, where we forked over cash in order to stand around awkwardly swirling low end wine while the cleancut, logo-shirted employee recites marketing copy from the brochure. There were two wines (out of perhaps 10) that were enjoyable, but both (the Plumpjack cab and Duckhorn reserve Merlot) were clearly overpriced and not worth the feeling-like-you-got-swindled effect I usually associate w/ buying unjustifiably expensive Napa wines.

But the third stop was the charm. After a picnic lunch in a random park in Yountville (don't ask how we ended up there) we arrived only 15 minutes late for our 2pm appointment at Paloma, up on Spring Mountain, which Tim will earnestly proclaim as the best Napa appellation. There, we met up with Barbara Richards, proprietess, and her charming Australian Yorkie, Aussie (I think that was her name). Here, there was no tasting room, just Barbara and her house, an exspansive deck, a stunning view, and half a dozen hummingbirds.

After initially surprising her with our numbers (I think she was expecting a few less of us) we wandered out onto her back deck, where she narrated and described for us the history of the winery, the makeup of their vineyards, the extent of the operation (three full time employees, including her, Jim, who's the winemaker, and one other guy) and why machine picking would never work on a hillside vineyard, particularly if said vineyard belonged to a winery that didn't want to murder their grapes. We plied her with questions and took pictures of the hummingbirds. Eventually, we went into her kitchen to stand around her table and taste their only production, an outstanding Merlot.

The contrast b/w the morning and afternoon visits was striking. Hearing about average alcohol from an ambivalent counterperson versus listening to a passionate producer are about as far apart on the spectrum of wine experience as it gets.

Needles to say, we left w/ three bottles. And a few pictures. And the resolute conviction not to own and run our own winery.