Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Recap of Pre-TG.

(Oak barrels galore. Robert Biale Winery.)

Sadly, our annual trip to Napa is over (we really need to get out that way more often).  We had a great time catching up, arguing with each other (no surprise there!), drinking wine (definitely NO surprise), and eating delicious food.  Here are some of the highlights...  On Friday night we went to Robert Biale Winery for 'Global Zin Day,' which I don't think actually exists but, hey, it's a great excuse to drink yummy zinfandel wine.... red varietal, not white.

(My Dad's backyard. The Napa river.)

We had torrential downpours on Saturday night but woke up to this beautiful day on Sunday morning.  Before our 'pretend' Thanksgiving dinner, we decided to head up to one of our favorite wineries for a tasting.... Alpha Omega.  The owner of the winery is a good friend of my Dad so we were able to have an extra special wine tasting.  After sampling some delicious wines in the tasting room, we were lead into the fermenting room... where the real magic happens!  Alpha Omega has a spectacular wine called Era.  Lee and I drank it this year on our one year anniversary... we think it's that special and that good.  Vincent (dude pictured below) allowed us to taste Era right out of the oak barrel that it is aging in.  Of course, a photo-op ensued. 


Enough about wine tasting.  Later that evening, we had a fabulous dinner with my 2 sisters and their boyfriends, my brother, and my step-mom and dad.  It was a rowdy group.... Soft-spoken peeps often don't last long at this dinner table.  It can be hard to get a word-in when you hang with this family!!


After dinner it's an unspoken rule that a dance party follows dessert.  My dad loooooves music and he loooooves it loud (hmmmm.... so that's where I got it from!) so we kicked off our shoes, poured another glass of wine, and got the party started.  On the play list was everything from Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga to Kings of Leon to Fleetwood Mac... and then, after my dad stepped outside to have his nightly cigar... we turned on the house music.  And. Danced. Our. Asses. Off.... and also some of the calories from dinner.

Every time I leave Napa after a visit I always realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful, fun, opinionated, passionate family.  There is surely never a dull, drama-free moment when we get together!  Hopefully it isn't another year before we all meet again! 

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