ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Reporting from wine country

Mary and I were fortunate to travel to Napa Valley last week. While many things about this trip were special, one of the most amazing parts of our trip was our companions on this journey. We traveled with dear friends who Mary has known since her childhood. They had only been to Napa once, very briefly for a wedding many years ago and had not really “seen” wine country. From the first time we crossed over the Mayacamas Mountains and made the descent into “the Valley” they had a look of amazement and awe we will never forget. For anyone who goes for the first time it is an experience like no other, so if you haven’t yet gone you should.

Our estimates based on what we saw is that harvest is 75% - 80% compete at this point. While wineries were actively crushing fruit and doing all the tasks involved in harvest it was not at the frenetic pace that you see right in the middle of harvest. We did not see any white fruit still hanging, and red fruit we saw still on the vine was the later ripening varietals. The grapes we checked out when walking through the vineyards looked healthy. The bunches were full and ripe, we saw some small amounts of raisining but not enough to be concerned about the overall crop. Berries were small and in talking to winemakers while there, the summer was much hotter in the north toward and including Mendocino and Lake Counties where some vineyards were damaged by the excessive heat. In Napa and Sonoma thought the conditions were near perfect.

In all of our travels around Napa and Sonoma the skies were thankfully smoke free and crystal clear, a welcome relief after last year. One of the many treats of our trip was a tasting at Failla where we met for the first time, and had an extended conversation with owner/winemaker Ehren Jordan. We walked around the winery and into the caves, Ehren was incredibly gracious with his time and we saw the current harvest in progress.

More striking was the damage they experienced in last year’s fires. It was nothing short of breathtaking in a tragic sense. The fire last year came right up to the crush pad at Failla where the fire fighters “turned” the fire away. They barely saved the old wood structure cottage that serves as the office for the tasting room and the hospitality staff. The dense forest that surrounded much of the grounds was gone. In a rare occurrence Failla actually lost quite a few Zinfandel vines right there on the estate, a rare occurrence as vines don’t normally burn, a bitter testament to the intensity of the fire. A number of times Ehren used the term vaporized to describe the homes and winery structures that were lost nearby.

On a personal note, we traveled over to the Sonoma side of the Mayacamas and were able to walk in to our former homesite. It burned to the ground in the same fire last year when the flames crested the ridgeline between Napa and Sonoma Counties. All that had been our landscaped yard, our rose and vegetable gardens were just grown over with prairie grass. The only thing left was a whole in the ground where excavators had cleared the remaining debris from our home, and the swimming pool. It left us speechless. We can’t imagine how frightening it would have been to live through the event, and it raised anew our hopes and prayers for all who endured it and still are going through the cleanup and recovery.

Wine Country is truly a resilient place. There were plenty of visitors and while restaurants were full, they were not packed. Reservations were challenging at times but we suspect this is driven mostly by labor shortages that every industry is dealing with right now. Hospitality staffs in both restaurants and wineries seemed to be limiting crowds to what they could handle making it a bit more difficult to get into all the spots we wanted to. All we talked to were positive about the 2021 harvest and relieved to have a smoke and fire free summer, they were again brimming with hope for coming years as well and we hope they get a wet winter and good growing years going forward.

Through our friend’s eyes wine country is as ever beautiful and truly unique. It was great to be there and truly special to be there with them. We look forward to more wonderful trips back to Napa in the future. We will report on some wine and restaurant specifics next week.

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George Balling is co-owner with his wife, Mary Lancaster, of the dinner party, a wine and gift shop in Coeur d’Alene by Costco. The dinner party has won the award for best wine shop in North Idaho twice, including for 2018.

George is also published in several other publications around the country. After working in wineries in California and judging many wine competitions, he moved to Coeur d’Alene with Mary more than 10 years ago to open the shop.

You can also follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop.