Napa:2, France:1000

Last week I had the curious experience of having visitors from South Carolina take me around the Napa Valley. What can visitors from South Carolina show me, a Northern California native? Well, you’d be surprised. I thought being a local I had Napa all figured out, but indulging in my friend’s requests proved to me that there’s more to Napa than I expected.

Being from San Francisco means you have your tried and tested old favorites, and since there are so many of them, there’s little incentive to discover new things. While us locals have our gems (Rochioli, my rock) new recruits and curious visitors give us a chance to re-evaluate our list and add on new candidates. While there are too many wineries to have thoroughly evaluated all, it is always a treat to find an authentically good, unpretentious, un-Napalike winery.

The winery I speak of is called August Briggs. Don’t be put off by the name, I was because I had a Chemistry teacher named Briggs, instead, think of Joe. Joe is the common name of the man August Briggs, also the wine-maker of this unassuming but delicious winery. First off, there are no entrance temples or faux-chateaus on this lot, just your average building. And you can save the usual $20+ tasting fee and put your hard-earned cash towards well-made booze.

Usually at a wine tasting there are about two wines that are a cut above (or more likable than) the others. Not so in this case. All the wines were excellent examples and it was difficult choosing which onesss to take home. Fortunately for my friends, August Briggs offers an excellent wine club, whereby there is no waiting list and you only have to commit to buying 8 bottles of wine a year. Four bottles twice a year. Not hard to do given these great wines run around $40, yes, not Trader Joe specials, but special nonetheless.

My second Napa discovery of note was a restaurant I had embarrassingly not heard of. Again, another nasty name, Martini House, not worthy of its delicious offerings.  It was founded by two renowned SF chefs, but me being usually broke, I don’t hear of these things. This is where the chefs eat, as I later learned by my two co-diners who were staring behind me for the entire dinner at Masaharu Morimoto of Iron Chef fame. I also don’t watch TV.

To me, the food was well prepared and different, each course was was well done in it’s own right, and we all had some to take home. Plus they had great onion rings. And homemade ice cream.

So the lessons of the day are, do not judge a winery / restaurant / Napa by it’s name because given a fresh set of taste buds you might be begrudgingly delightedly surprised.