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NEWS / Blog

Oct 7, 2009

Making the most of Napa Valley

As we spent our next morning in the relaxing mode, taking the famous mud bath treatment and swimming in the pool, we started a bit late for wine tasting tour. In such limited time, we decided to skip lunch and visited 2 wineries: BV and Provenance. I love BV wines especially Chardonnay, which does not seem distributed widely in Japan. As per Provenance, it was my lucky discovery that they used to be Beaucanon, which I fell in love with in my early age for wine pursuit. As the winery was hard to find as well as their wines in the market, often I overlooked their modest sign, and was only successful for a few times I stopped by. I am not a specialist in wines, but I did recognize the same old flavor that I liked in the tasting. Luckily, I found reasonable half bottles, which I had to bring some home, for all these years I had missed the taste.
For our late lunch / early dinner, we came to Bistro Don Giovanni, my favorite restaurant. It is one of my happiest places to dine not only because they serve great food, but their joyful atmosphere always made me and my guests feel happy. And this time was no different.
Their reputation must have grown over the years, and the place was already packed when we arrived, which was not even 6pm. We waited in their nice lawn garden by the fountain, only to be seated an hour later in the busy bar area. I got a bit nervous because I wanted to make this dinner a fantastic one. But soon a local wine and appetizers were brought to the table, and it turned out to be a very merry dining, to make a nice contrast from the quiet and slow setting the night before. I got to try my usual favorites like Pizza Margherita and Caesar Salad, and also discovered some new tastes like Stilton Cheese and Orata. Other than dining, my daughter had a great time observing people as seen in the shot above from her POV, "why big people blabber over dinner?" in my interpretation.

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