1976 Napa Valley Exploits

I began to look for job in the restaurant business in the summer of 1975 after a conversation with a friend, who was working in Seattle at a very expensive restaurant.  He reported that he made more money in one week than I did in a month. BTW, that same scoundrel today is Pastor of a large church in San Diego.  I found that job on the shores of Newport Beach California in a glorious spot called The Monterey Mansion. It was a culture shock of no small measure. I had attended a Christian College and worked for a para-church organization. The world I was entering was light years ahead of most of the culture for its lack of values and care for things that might be illegal.

So after six months in the restaurant business with stories that include the likes of Billy Olds and countless exploit that shall remain in the world of ......well, the world my kids hear little of, I decided to drive back to Seattle. I really had no agenda other than the fact that I only had about $1600.00 to my name. A few years earlier I had traveled to a renaissance fair with a friend of mine name Jan from Fresno. We had skirted wine country and since her family was in the raisin business it seemed like a natural conversation to talk about what she knew about wines in Napa Valley. So, I decided to stop over in Napa Valley.

When Jan and I had driven up there were several distinquishing differences. One, I drove a mustard MGB that hummed along the road like a fine tuned machine. This time I was driving a beat up VW Bug that I had bought after crashing the magnificent MGB

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The second was I that I was in Napa for one reason and one reason only. I liked to drink wine and wondered just what, how, when, and why people wanted to make the stuff. I had crossed over to come towards San Francisco in the concord-martinez area and stopped and had a beer at a field workers tavern along the way.
"What you want to do is to get to 29, that is where all the really good wineries are...along 29" said the hispanic and frankly very sexy bartender who had mentioned if I would wait the six hours until she got off she would be happy to take me there because it was her day off. Even in my three beer stupor I thought that might be a slow down since coming back to Concord was not in my vocabulary.

So it was off to 29. Sometimes I wonder, how good would my Spanish have been if I had waited those six hours.....or how toasted would I have been would I have ever got to Napa Valley?

Napa Valley was dry that year. They had been talking about a drought. My VW buzzed into 29 to the Oakville grocery store. I had my heart set on a Dr. Pepper but changed my mind when I realize that the little grocery store had ten times as much wine on the shelves as had my local liquor store in Seal Beach. What a place! And a damn fine location to ask for lodging and winery information. Wineries and pear trees they told me. And there were some good wine being made. Robert Mondavi had a winery that made good wine and had free wine tastings. Seemed like a good idea. But first I felt like I needed a place to stay. At the grocery store they directed me to a family that owned a house that had a room for rent...it included breakfast the next day. As I spoke to the proprietors who had recently moved into Napa from Chicago. I noted that for them they had moved to the promised land. It was during this interaction that I got wshat I considered the low down on where in Napa a tourist, a wine tourist should go. Who pours what for tasting, who charges and who does not, not everyone charged for tastings. Only a few had "tasting" facilities while several recommended I look up a leader in the winemaking field a Warren Winarski.