Wine Plus Me Equals Awesomeness

Last week I had the opportunity to vacation all over the country (thanks for the time off, boss!) and see friends I haven't seen in a looong time. One portion of my trip was spending 2.5 days in Napa Valley with the Blocksma family sipping our way from vineyard to vineyard, pretending to know what we were talking about as we breathed in young cabernet sauvignon and unoaked chardonnay.

We started Tuesday (well, Doug started at this point.. Liz and I had already been for a nice long walk, figured out our breakfast stop, and read half the New Testament) with an 11am appointment at CADE Winery. It took a bit to get up the hill, but once we finally found it and stepped onto the grounds, we realized the windy drive was worth it.

Stunning, isn't it? And that was taken on my iphone. The property was absolutely the most beautiful I have ever seen. We walked up, were ignored a little bit while the more snooty falooty individuals sipped their sauvignon blanc (excellent) and the blonde employee whose father happened to have been the poject manager on this property's construction, and who also happened to be wearing the orange Tory Burch flats I have been scrimping and saving for, explained to them exactly what they were tasting. She came over to us several minutes later, poured us a decent sampling of said sauvignon blanc (yep, still excellent) and answered any questions we had about the winery and property.

CADE is an extremely 'green' winery and is on track to be LEED certified, which I could care less about. It does mean, however, that if you have an electric car and can somehow make it all the way up the hill to CADE on just your power, you will have a place to plug in and sample $60-$200 bottles of wine while your vehicle charges. It also means that if you are trying to convince everyone around you that you are, as my mother would say "trying to go green", buying wine from them will probably work in your favor.

Let me cut to the chase. I loved CADE and would go back on my next trip to Napa without a doubt. The things I loved about it, however, had nothing to do with the 93 points Robert Parker gave them recently, or the fact that they have solar panels on their roof. I loved the view, the sauvignon blanc, and the fact that they have a chef who creates food and wine pairing menus 3-4 times a week (next trip! with jessica!). I also loved that everyone visiting at the same time we were there gave off an aura of wine knowledge that was mostly made up. Oh wine snobs, what would the world be like without you?