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Bravo to Hall Winery for Keeping up our Spirits!

If you are a resident of Napa Valley… or an occasional visitor here… chances are that you have driven by Bunny Foo Foo, the 35-foot tall, stainless-steel sculpture that highlights the roadside vineyard of Hall Winery, in St. Helena.

For the record: I LOVE this whimsical sculpture, created by English sculptor Lawrence Argent; it puts the fun into wine-making and wine-tasting, which can get a bit too serious. C’mon people – wine is a lifestyle beverage, not bleach to drink to avoid getting Covid-19!

At various times of the year, Bunny Foo Foo, named after a children’s poem about a pestering rabbit, dons calendar-relevant garb – a conical witch’s hat around Halloween, or a basketful of colorful eggs at Easter.

But thanks to Kathryn and Craig Hall, for elevating our spirits during the coronavirus pandemic… Bunny Foo Foo now sports the mandatory-in-public face mask!

Thanks for the chuckle, Kathryn and Craig.

And by the way, I continue to enjoy cases of your 2012 WALT Pinot Noirs and 2015 Hall Winery Cabernets, which I overbought years ago. They’re still rockin’ delicious! Longevity, as well as balance and flavor, are Hallmarks of Hall wines!

Spectacular Wine-Country Images For Sale!

From an original photograph by Napaman.

“Alma de la Tierra,” which means “Soul of the Earth,” celebrates life in the vineyards.

If you’ve followed Napaman for the past 10 years, you have only occasionally found a story about me. Ninety-nine percent of the stories here have been about a winery, a wine tasting, a restaurant, or an event. Napaman was the messenger of these stories, not the subject.

But this column turns this history on its head. This time, the story is about my photography.

In the short space of a few column inches, I am going to expose you to my work and possibly even prompt you to purchase one of my photographs, or, better yet, have you order one affixed to a shower curtain (looks great!), coffee mug, or create a set of postcards to give to someone as a hostess, birthday, or holiday, gift. No kidding.

Fog balloons, Napa Valley

Gnarly Zin vine, Napa Valley

Fall colors, Napa Valley

Biblical sunset, Napa Valley

(NOT photoshopped – this is the real sky, my camera recorded exactly what I saw)

These wine-country images, and dozens more, appear on my Fine Arts America site.  (Click on this link to be taken to my wine-country portfolio. Use the discount code EFEXDM to get 20% off whatever you buy – consider this Napaman’s treat to you for being a loyal reader.)

The “Alma de la Tierra”poster above is available in a variety of sizes and can be printed on numerous materials (paper, metal, canvas, etc.).

With the purchase of 10 or more copies of the poster, I can have the text, “Alma de la Tierra”replaced with your own personalized message. For such an individual request, please contact my business manager, Jim Scott, at [email protected]

Backgrounder

Few readers know that before I was a professional wordsmith, I made my living as a professional photographer.

Island of Djerba, Tunisia, photo by Jim White

Island of Djerba, Tunisia, photo by Jim White

In 1970, I traveled to Africa to tackle a freelance, photographic assignment for National Geographic in Tunisia – the editors, comfortable with my photographic skills and eye, asked me to record life on the Isle of Djerba, a.k.a., “Land of the Lotophages”(lotus-eaters).

These photos from Africa, Jim White

After covering wars, drought, and civil unrest across Africa with my camera for years, I discovered that I also had a voice with words. And so I became a foreign correspondent in Africa, stringing for numerous periodicals, newspapers, United Press International and the Associated Press.

After spending time in African jails for being in the right place (as a journalist) at the wrong time (charged for being in areas where journalists were unwelcome – in Libya, Egypt and Uganda), I returned to North America. I calculated that it was safer to write about prepared food rather than African conflicts.

I became a food writer, then a restaurant critic and in the process, (not being immodest here, but who else is going to say this…?) was twice named, by a panel of journalist peers, in 1980, and again in 1982, the Best Food Writer in North Americawriting for a newspaper with 1 million circulation or greater.

But all these many years later, I still have a passion for photography; and after moving to Napa Valley, I revitalized this passion in the vineyards.

Jimi Hendrix, photo by Jim White.

A year ago, I teamed up with a talented, local photographer and darkroom technician, Jim Scott, who digitized 20,000 of my film images, and coordinated the sale of a portfolio of Jimi Hendrix images, which I had shot in 1969, to the Estate of Jimi Hendrix.

And it was Jim who is coaxing me to monetize my wine-country imagery; he insisted that I post this story.

Will this story generate photography sales? Dunno. Let’s see.

Anyway, thanks for reading to the end.

Happy 100th Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti!

One of my favorite poets of all time wrote one of my favorite poems of all time.

The poet is Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Godfather of the Beat Generation, whose bookstore, City Lights, in San Francisco, has been a beacon to all would-be writers, poets, satyrs and intelligentsia since 1953. Ferlinghetti turns 100 today.

Crowds gathered in front of City Lights this afternoon to celebrate the occasion while Ferlinghetti stayed out of sight, largely because his vision is, well, largely out of sight – he is nearly blind.

From 1 pm onward, celebrants, artists, poets, unusual dressers, and particularly hirsute partiers gathered to hear area poets read and to share stories about Ferlinghetti, with whom so many celebrants appear to personally have had a relationship.

In Jack Kerouac Alley, beside the store, attendees signed a LARGE birthday card for Ferlinghetti.

Local folks who attended the afternoon festivities:

My favorite poetry book of Ferlinghetti’s has always been A Coney Island of The Mind, containing my personal favorite poem, untitled, which starts out “Sometime During Eternity,” which is Ferlinghetti’s dirge about how Christ has come to be referenced.

I own several copies of A Coney Island of the Mind,even one translated into Italian, and one signed by Ferlinghetti. Since publication in 1958, the book has sold more than a million copies, making it one of the bestselling poetry books of all time.

When I lived in Toronto, Canada, I made numerous visits to San Francisco on business – often to review restaurants as I was the food editor and restaurant critic of the Toronto Star, then the third largest newspaper in North America.

And on every trip, I’d work in a visit to City Lights, to check out the unusual collection of books, magazines and floor dedicated to Beat literature. There was no other bookstore in America quite like it then. And, if you were wondering, there still isn’t.

I took the photo of Ferlinghetti in front of his store (top, above) in the summer of 1975. For me, it’s a sublime memory of that day, when we talked, exchanged ideas, and felt good about us, our country, and our place on this spinning orb.

But that was 44 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Especially how we feel about this country.

Over the years, Ferlinghetti has made unusual public appearances – he often popped up at times you wouldn’t expect. One such appearance was at the 1976 filming of The Last Waltz, the final concert of the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held at Winterland Ballroom, in San Francisco.

The film documented the Band’s last-ever performance and during the event, Ferlinghetti appeared to speak some nonsensical lines, which were included in the film’s final cut.

I wanted to attend the birthday festivities today at City Lights to commemorate Ferlinghetti’s gift to us all, his words of wisdom and wise-ness, and his coruscating view of so many of our cultural icons and habits.

For a fresh understanding of what makes the poet tick, you might read Ferlinghetti’s just published autobiography, titled Little Boy.

Happy 100^th Birthday Lawrence; thank you for making my voyage on the Good Ship LIFE so enjoyable – much more so than had you not also been a passenger.

Margrit Biever Mondavi Dies at Age 91

The headlines and obituaries will note that Margrit Mondavi, a pioneer of modern-day California wine, and wife of Robert Mondavi, died today.

But Margrit was much more than that to me. She was a friend and, as Robert’s wife, the leading influencer of a movement to bring together art, music, and food with wine.

Margrit had Class, with a capital C, she had humor, and she set a high bar for entertaining and cooking.

She convinced Bob to start the Great Chefs of France Cooking School back in the mid-70s to prove to rubes in America that Bob’s red wines could stand up to Michelin, three-star food. And she was right.

Margrit and Bob introduced me to Napa Valley in May 1980, forever changing my own life’s direction and focus. They are why I live here today.

On my first visit to Napa Valley, to attend a 3-day cooking school with Jean Troisgros, one of the great French chefs (from his family’s restaurant, Freres Troisgrois, in Roanne), Margrit invited me to her home on a knoll in Yountville to proudly show off her Swiss-made, just-installed, wood-fired, oven with which she was looking forward to bake bread.

The last time I saw Margrit, was at the 50^th anniversary dinner of the winery, which she hosted on Monday, April 25^th.

During her lifetime, she and Robert built a wine empire which went public, and which the family eventually was forced to sell in a takeover bid.

Theirs was a colorful, but tempestuous life saga.

At the winery’s 50^th anniversary dinner in April, Margrit sat beside another wine pioneer and legend, Warren Winarski, who made the 1966, very first Cabernet produced at Robert Mondavi Winery.

Warren then went on to his own fame as proprietor and winemaker at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.

When the 1966 Cabernet wine was poured for assembled guests, Warren stood up said, “I am Warren Winiarski... and I made this wine.” There was an audible gasp in the room.

What are the chances that anyone ever gets to taste a 50-year-old wine WITH THE PERSON WHO MADE THE WINE 50 YEARS EARLIER?

On top of which, let’s not forget – this wine was sublime!

Between Margrit and Warren in this photo is Mark de Vere, head wine educator at the winery.

 

These last few years, Margrit had been Vice President of Cultural Affairs at Robert Mondavi Winery, now owned by Constellation Brands. 

Margrit joined the winery in 1967. Under her direction, Robert Mondavi Winery developed the cultural and culinary arts programs, which are now benchmarks for the entire wine world. 

Margrit created a showplace for painters, sculptors, photographers, jazz and classical musicians, great chefs and winemakers of the world.

Forty-Seven years ago, Margrit founded the winery’s extremely popular Summer Music Festival to benefit the Napa Valley Symphony. This concert series has hosted some of the world’s best jazz, R&B and pop artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett.  I know about this because many Saturday afternoons at 5 pm, we would sit on the lawn of the winery to be transfixed by the presence of some of the world’s great musical artists.

Typical menu designed and illustrated by Margrit.

Margrit was an artist in her own right, often designing and illustrating the menus which were presented to guests who dined in the winery’s very special Vintage Room.

I have written elsewhere that some of the very best meals I have ever eaten in Napa Valley were prepared at the winery and served in the Vintage Room. All under the tutelage of Margrit.

Margrit leaves behind three children, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. And a slew of fans and friends in Napa Valley. We will miss your cheery smile, Margrit. May you rest in peace while the rest of us grieve our loss.

The family has asked me to include this detail:

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to The Oxbow School, 530 Third Street, Napa, California 94558 or to the American Cancer Society, 860 Napa Valley Corporate Way, Suite E, Napa, California 94558.  

Book NOW – and Avoid the June Rush! Hall Rutherford - One of Napa Valley’s Top Winery Tours

Hall Rutherford, 750 foot above the valley floor

The price of winery tours in Napa Valley has nudged north like the price of premium Cabernet itself.

Back in the early 2000s, you could take a great winery tour for $20, and simple tastings were $10, with the fee waived against a purchase.

Not any more.

The newest valley tour, called Appellation Exploration Experience, is offered at Hall Winery’s Rutherford campus at $125 per guest, ($100 for club members).

Promoted as the hedonistic, Triple Crème of winery tours in Napa Valley, the Hall Rutherford tour features a 90-minute walk around the gorgeous property and a tasting of impeccable wines from no fewer than three Napa Valley sub-appellations. (The Halls get fruit from 15 of the 16 sub-appellations, so for them, it is not a problem to choose three – any of which will dazzle you.)

Trying to stay abreast of new tours, and do the homework for readers planning to visit Napa Valley, napaman signed up for “Appellation Exploration” to learn what makes the tour so special.

There are gorgeous – and playful – works of art outdoors, and many exquisite sculptures inside the winery at Hall Rutherford.

Additional pieces which I loved on my tour:

Hall Rutherford is an experience for your palate AND your eyes.

There are more than 30 pieces of contemporary art here and they wines you will taste are so good that you will want to swallow, not spit. Those kind of wines.

The winery is built at the Sacrashe vineyard site which sits atop Auberge du Soleil on a peak on the east side of Napa Valley.

Sacrashe Vineyard in the winter – before bud break

I never heard the proper pronunciation for this site until my visit.

It’s SACK-RAH-SHAY, originally named by the three partners who owned it before the Halls – Sacri, Craig and Sherwin – using the first few letters of their respective last names.

Kathryn and Craig Hall acquired the vineyard in 1995 and intended to beef it up quickly, but their plans were sidetracked when Kathryn was named US Ambassador to Austria, where she served from 1997 to 2001.

Craig and Kathryn Hall, pictured in 2012

Upon returning to Napa Valley, the Halls did more than just update Sacrashe – they went on a buying spree and acquired a large property with vines in St. Helena, which became Hall St. Helena, where the bulk of the winery’s annual 100,000 cases are produced.

If you missed my napaman story about the St. Helena campus, check it our here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2014/09/waiter-theres-a-hare-in-my-glass.html

But back to Hall Rutherford

Your tour begins with a walk around the property and a pit stop at the Sacrashe vineyard itself. This is followed by a tour of the production facility where my guide discussed all elements of wine making.

Hall wine educator, Sol Gold

My guide was terrific, filled with knowledge which he leaked out at just the right moments during the tour. A big round of applause for wine educator Sol Gold.

HALL has custom-made, custom-shaped, fermentation tanks and favors gravity flow production.

One of the reasons Hall Cabernets are so damn delicious (the 2011 Kathryn Hall [red label] Cabernet was my single favorite contemporary release Napa Valley Cab last year) is the fact that all the wines are made with free-run juice, not pressed juice, so even before you put the wine into barrel to age 22 to 24 months, it has a head start in silkiness, sensuality, and textural purity, which is amplified through the barrel-aging period.

Cabernets here are unctuous, exhibiting an uncommon silky texture, a suppleness, and exquisite balance; this is partially due to the winemaking practice of NOT pressing the skins and seeds, which can extract harsh tannins.

To get from the production facility to the gorgeous Crystal Cave tasting room, you traverse a long, barrel-aging tunnel. Here, in the tunnel, you stop to thieve a sample of the still-aging 2013 Kathryn Hall Cabernet from barrel. A major charmer even from cask.

Bravo to Steve Leveque, Hall’s director of winemaking; during the Rutherford tour, you will get to taste his 2013 (red label) Kathryn Hall Cabernet from barrel (it won’t be released until September 2016). It is already a delicious, forehead-smacking wine, capable of bringing a wide grin to a seasoned wine writer’s face. We’re talking A Beverage of Natural Beauty.

I’m told that Robert Parker tasted the 2013 Kathryn Hall Cabernet from cask and declared it a 99-100 point wine and it still has another nine months to age in barrel and then a full year to age in bottle before it ever sees the public– so that is quite the compliment from Mr. Parker.

On my tour, we tasted three 2012 Cabernets, none of which will be released until this fall. But visitors to Hall Rutherford may purchase these particular wines now, ahead of release.

The wines are tasted in a most impressive space, a cave hollowed out beneath the Sacrashe vineyard.

From the ceiling hangs a chandelier made to look as though it were the roots of a vine. The one-of-a-kind chandelier, designed by artist Donald Lipski, sports more than 1500 Swarovski crystal “petals.”

Wines I tasted

Guests taste wines from three different sub-appellations -- from the same vintage -- to learn about distinctions, which soil and terroir bring to bear on a finished wine.

On my tour, I tasted 2012 Hall Cabernets, one from each of St. Helena, Stags Leap District and Diamond Mountain.

2012 Hall, Bergfeld Vineyard, St. Helena, Cabernet Sauvignon

Starts with smoke and alluring fruit on the nose. Has a gorgeous, spicy complexity on the palate, with hints of cinnamon at this point in its evolution, which are likely to disappear with age and integrate into the wine.

2012 Hall, Stags Leap District, Cabernet Sauvignon

The fruit for this wine comes from a leased vineyard adjacent to Shafer in Stags Leap District, one of my favorite sub-appellations.

This wine had me jumping out of my seat. My notes included: “THIS IS THE DADDY!”

The wine exhibits sublime aromas and flavors, which pop from the glass.

A gorgeous wine, seamless, filled with ripe red and dark fruits, and totally in balance, from the initial sip through to the swallow.

This is wine candy for adults.

2012 Hall, Diamond Mountain District, Cabernet Sauvignon

The darkest, most brooding, wine of the three sub-appellations tasted; this wine is darkly purple, heavily intense, showing more structure than either of the other wines.

Impeccable winemaking here – you can’t put more wine into a wine. Absolutely first-class Cabernet.

In the winter off-season just now, it’s reasonably easy to reserve space for Appellation Exploration, but come spring and summer, be advised that they will be booking weeks, if not months, ahead.

The reason: Hall only offers two tours a day – 11 am and 2 pm and the winery is limited to hosting not more than 15 people during the whole day. They can sign up 14 people for one tour and one individual for the other tour on a single day – or can mix n’ match any combination of guests, but can’t exceed 15 total guests on any one day.

So if you like what you learn here, book early.

To book a tour, contact Laura Garrow, on the phone at 707-967-2626, or via email at [email protected]. Also check out tour and winery details on the web at hallwines.com.

No Need to Wait for Spring – Lisa Livoni is Here!

Napa artist Lisa Livoni’s work is so bright, so fresh, so evocative, that one glance at her watercolor of flowers, bulbs, or fruit, is enough to get you through another dreary winter day.

Lisa’s watercolors are a visual elixir, a mesmerizing achievement, reproducing on paper how outdoor plants and vegetation make you feel. Lisa captures the spirit of life, doesn’t just capture a three-dimensional flower on a two-dimensional sheet of paper.

Lisa Livoni and her artwork

To be transparent: My wife and I have collected Lisa’s works from a time before we ever met Lisa and her husband Robert.

I was so enthusiastic about Lisa’s watercolor skills that, six years ago, I asked Lisa to work with me to produce a tourist guide to Napa Valley that would feature her watercolors and my words.

For many reasons and time pressures, we never got the project off the ground.

The good news now is that starting this Sunday, January 11, Napa Valley residents – and lucky visitors to the valley through March 4 -- will have an opportunity to view Lisa’s watercolors up close.

Lisa has a one-woman exhibition called A Passion for Light and Color at the Robert Mondavi Winery (Vintage Room) in Oakville.

Readers of napaman.com are invited to attend the exhibition reception this coming Sunday. You’ll have a chance to meet Lisa, see all her glorious watercolors up close – and buy one to take home. It’s the best way to break your dreary winter blues.

The reception runs 2 to 4 pm Sunday and I suspect you’ll be served a glass of refreshing Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc, which does to your palate what Lisa’s watercolors do to your eyes – make you happy!

Lisa was born in Honolulu, HI. Instead of brushes with death on a surfboard as a child, Lisa opted for brushes she could fill with paint. In her youth, she traveled extensively, living at one point for three years in Japan. She also took art classes at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Later on, Lisa studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA.

She moved to Napa Valley in 1988. Washington’s loss was Napa Valley’s gain.

Lisa’s work is currently represented by Thomas Bartlett in Napa, and Cindy Raleigh Fine Art in the San Francisco Bay-area.

But your best chance to see a large portfolio of Lisa’s work – and to purchase one of her gorgeous images -- will be at the Robert Mondavi Winery this coming Sunday, through March 4.

See you there.

Waiter! There’s a Hare in my Glass!

Well, there could be if you visit Hall Winery, in St. Helena, and stand in the vineyard, admiring a 3.5-ton, stainless steel sculpture called “Bunny Foo Foo.”

The sculpture is only part of what’s new at Hall, which dazzles guests with its modern, new Visitors’ Center, staffed by extremely friendly wine folk.

“Bunny Foo Foo,” designed and crafted by British artist Lawrence Argent, was commissioned and named by winery owner Kathryn Hall who used to read a poem of the same name to her children, David and Jennifer, at bedtime.

(Bunny Foo Foo was a rabbit who hopped through the forest, scooping up field mice, bopping them on the head.)

Today, the 35-foot-tall, shiny, Swiss-cheese-aerated, Bunny Foo Foo is an object of beauty - as is the visitor center and the wines showcased inside it.

The new Hall Visitor Center.

I can’t recall having been so impressed by a winery upgrade in Napa Valley in years. The Halls have knocked this one out of the park and I will insist that friends who visit over the next year add Hall winery, in St. Helena, to their MUST-DO list.

(There’s also a Hall winery in Rutherford, but today, we’re strictly speaking about the St. Helena venue.)

After tasting a dozen wines, I couldn’t agree more. Crazy good...

There are as many wines to taste here as there are art installations on the property – I stopped counting at 30 of each.

The wines are glorious expressions of balance and rectitude (now THAT’s a word I haven’t seen ascribed to wine recently!). There’s a purity of production here and it shows in the glass.

I visited Hall twice this month to research this story. I scored all the Cabernets and Pinot Noirs I tasted in the mid 90s and I was gob-smacked by the 2011 red label “Kathryn Hall”  Cabernet, which I scored 96 points.

On my second visit, I joined a group of Canadian businessmen for a two-hour, property tour-and-tasting led by Hall wine educator Paul Dugoni. 

I liked Paul’s casual manner, and the Hall story he shared. He knowledgably answered every question posed by the group.

Paul Dugoni leads a tour through the winemaking process, encouraging guests to taste wine while learning about the winery’s colorful history.

Paul related that the Halls acquire grapes from 70 different vineyard sites to make their various branded Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon wines.

Paul led the group out into the vineyards to let members pluck ripe Cabernet Sauvignon from the vines to learn about grape ripeness.

But first, a word about the art...

The art at Hall is Craig Hall’s doing. He believes, like Margrit Mondavi does down the road at Robert Mondavi Winery, that art nourishes the human spirit and can make a profound difference in one’s life.

Throughout his business career, Craig has placed some of his favorite personal art on display for public enjoyment.

Art installations placed around the grounds bring as much joie to your eyes as Hall wines do to your palate.

I’d walk a mile for a camel... especially one standing outside a winery as welcoming as Hall.

Not only does a giant, stainless-steel rabbit jump out of the vineyards, but a life-sized, fiberglass, aluminum, stainless-steel camel stands guard at the door of the visitor’s center.

Albino Camel Contemplating Needle is a 2013 work by Californian artist John Baldessari.

The 83-year-old artist has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions and in more than 1,000 group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Which means his work is well respected, highly collected and we’re lucky to have such a piece in dreamy old St. Helena.

The work is called Red Rooms, completed in 2013 by American artist Peter Wegner. It is a masterful accretion of nearly 500,000 die-cut index cards mounted with their cut end exposed to the viewer.

Asked about the installation, the artist said, “The edge of a piece of paper doesn’t amount to much. You might miss it if you weren’t looking for it.”

And yet, when you put enough of these potentially overlooked index cards together, they can make a statement. Even a colorful one.

This is not a painting. It’s not a classic “art installation.” It has the mass of sculpture but is not one. It is also not architecture. Whatever it is, or isn’t, I sure do like it.

There is a sensual element to Jaume Plensa’s marble-and-lead head, called Sanaa, that I find compelling, mysterious, even alluring. I could stare at it for hours and not be bored.

The Barcelona-born sculptor’s works are known to evoke emotion while stimulating thought. Sanaa sure does both, though I do not understand the name choice.

Is the name a paean to the award-winning Tokyo architectural firm Sejima, Nishizawa and Associates, colloquially known at “Sanna,” or is it a reference to the capital of Yemen, Sana’a?

The wine here is an art form too...

The wines are Kathryn Hall’s doing. She developed a passion for wine growing up in her family’s vineyards in Mendocino County.

The couple’s desire to create one (actually two!) of the top wineries in Napa Valley were put on hold in the late 1990s, when Kathryn was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Austria (1997 through 2001).

With the couple’s return to Napa Valley in 2002, the Halls embarked on a path to create some of the most compelling properties, wines, and vineyard sites in Napa Valley. Olympic judges might score it this way: 

Winery Intention 10

Execution of Idea 10

Overall Form 10.

In my mind, the Halls have earned a Gold Medal in Winery Construction.

The visitors’ tasting bar.

The tasting room, designed by local architect Jarrod Denton, of Signum Architecture, is an original, one-of-a-kind visual statement. The private salons for tasting are linear and gorgeous. Art highlights many corners of the winery.

The wines.

My favorite Cabernets in my two tastings here were from the 2011 vintage, to which many wine writers have given the cold shoulder; their story is that 2011 was a wet, cold, crappy vintage and they’ve suggested that wine drinkers hold off for the more robust, exotic, fruit-bomb vintages of 2012 and 2013 (as yet unreleased valley-wide).

To this, napaman says NONSENSE!

I am one of the lone voices in the wilderness: I am advising readers to load up on 2011 Napa Valley Cabernets. For the most part, these are wines of extreme beauty and lower alcohol. This makes them food-friendly, (or Foo-Friendly, if you like serving them with rabbit).

The three 2011 Hall Cabernets below are elegant, balanced, filled with ample fruit, and gorgeous poise; you can drink them early, or set them away in a corner of your cellar for seven to 10 years and you will love them all along the journey.

2011 Hall “Kathryn Hall” red label

How do I love thee? Craig watch out! I love thee in innumerable ways; on the lips... on the swallow ... on the finish – long, focused and with a gorgeous finish. No one would ever guess in a blind tasting that this is one of those “2011 wet-vintage Cabernets.”

I scored this wine 96 points, one of my top-scoring 2011 Napa Valley Cabs so far this year. $135.

2011 Hall “T Bar, T Ranch” from Alexander Valley

Similar in style to the red label K. Hall above. No one tasting this blind would ever guess that it is a 2011 Cab because there are no pallid flavors, or missing top notes, which many wine writers erroneously attributed to this vintage. A stellar wine. Easily 93 points. $60.

2011 Hall “Ellie’s” cuvee

A blend of 91 percent Cab, 6 percent Cab Franc, and 3 percent Merlot.

Gorgeous plum top notes and a hint of tobacco on the finish. A generous expression of fruit, a superb example of impeccable winemaking.

94 points. 

Want to visit? Make an online reservation. Go to hallwines.com. Located at 401 St. Helena Highway South, at the southern end of St. Helena.

Want to Get High in San Francisco? Visit Coit Tower!

View from the top of Coit Tower

While napaman is a Napa-centric website, every once in a while a guy’s gotta get out of town, blow off some steam... and get high.

My idea of getting high is to visit a tall, landmark building, enabling me to capture sweeping, panoramic shots of the skyline.

The best place to do this in San Francisco is one of the city’s top tourist sites, Coit Tower, on the peak of Telegraph Hill.

View from the front

 

View from the back

Built in 1933 with funds bequeathed to the city by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, the unpainted, reinforced concrete tower with fluted vertical sides, is a monument to Art Deco.

The interior of the tower houses America’s very first publicly funded art project; 27 different artists were hired with public funds to paint huge murals, which wrap around the interior of the ground floor lobby.

Murals even sweep up a hidden stairwell toward the top, but these stairs today are off limits to the public.

The only way to reach for the stars now is via a slow-moving elevator.

The line-up for the elevator to the top of the tower forms the second the doors open at 10 am. As of Sept. 1, the price of the up-and-down ride is $8. Well worth it to catch the panoramic views above.

The murals were funded by the Public Works of Art Project, the first New Deal federal employment program for artists in America.

Most of the muralists were faculty and students of the California School of Fine Arts.

Being young and idealistic, many of the artists were leftists, some even outright Marxists. All were asked to depict life in California during the Depression.

Themes included were work in the countryside, and work in the city; many of the artists stressed the imperative of racial equality.

The murals are glorious works of art, commanding a visitor’s time to be able to absorb all the detail.

A small corner of Lucien Labaudt’s large mural depicts Eleanor Roosevelt who was National Director of the Public Works of Art Project (WPAP).

The following shots will give you an idea of the themes and detail of the oversized murals.

The dynamic duo who welcome more than 500,000 visitors a year to Coit Tower:

On the left, Terry Grimm, who operates the facility; on the right, Davy Crockett (Yes! America’s original Davy Crockett is a distant relative...), who is tour director of the tower.

To give an idea of how large the murals are, tower operator Terry Grimm stands before one of the ground floor panels.

One you’ve ridden the rickety elevator to the top, you have access to breathtaking, 360-degree views of San Francisco and the Bay.

On a clear day, there isn’t a better view of the city and Bay from anywhere.

From this perch, you can see all the other top tourist sites – The Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Embarcadero leading to Pier 39.

Talk about a birds’ eye-view!

The thing I find strange is that there is no closure atop the tower, no roof!

A 32-foot high wall vaults over the highest, last platform on which one can stand.

There’s a strange resemblance to Stonehenge here, or some druidic temple, the way the sunlight and open-air top interact.

 

Want to visit Coit Tower? It’s open seven days a week, 10 to 6 pm from May through October, and 10 to 5 pm, November through April.

Check the website for details:

http://sfrecpark.org/destination/telegraph-hill-pioneer-park/coit-tower/

Margrit Mondavi Honored for a Lifetime of Wine Achievements

Margrit Mondavi, the Wine World’s Patron Saint of Culture, was recognized this afternoon for her lifetime contribution to the American wine industry, essentially for proving to us all that wine is part of an active lifestyle.

Man cannot live on bread alone. Or on books alone, Or on art, theater or film alone. Everything, it turns out, goes better with a glass of wine, which Margrit has taught us to think of as the hydraulic fluid of life.

Margrit with the Tiiffany Monteith Trophy

At a formal luncheon at The Robert Mondavi Winery today, Margrit, as we all call, know, and love her, received the elegant, sterling silver, Tiffany Monteith Trophy, one of the most prestigious awards in the American wine industry.

Mike Thompson, our regional congressman, and Co-Chairman of the Congressional Wine Caucus, presented the award to Margrit at the luncheon, honoring her for her tireless promotion and consumer education in the fields of wine, food and the arts.

The Tiffany Monteith Trophy was created in 1980 and Margrit is its 30th recipient. The award is sponsored by the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association, whose board members were present for the presentation.

The award is presented annually (with a few exceptions) to an individual who, or an organization which, has made an exceptional contribution to the development of the American wine industry.

The Monteith Wine Bowl Trophy, made of pure sterling silver, was made by New York’s Tiffany & Co for the Vinifera Wine Growers Association. Its craftsmanship represents one of the earliest forms of silversmithing.

The award was presented to Margrit ahead of a delicious lunch, served in the Robert Mondavi Vintage Room, where I have had some of the best food I have ever been served in Napa Valley. (Let the record be clear: I first had the privilege of dining with Bob & Margrit Mondavi in this private dining room 33 years ago.)

Margrit kibbutzes around with L. Pierce Carson, food, arts and wine reporter for the Napa Valley Register.

Good going, Margrit! We’re sure happy for ya! It’s recognition you’ve earned. I’m pleased to be able to call you a friend and neighbor.

They Finally Hosted a Cultural Event for Margrit at Mondavi Winery!

After four decades of hosting receptions for visiting artists, chefs and musicians at her family’s winery, Margrit Mondavi was finally accorded her own cultural reception yesterday – for the publication of her new book, Sketchbook: Reflections on Wine, Food, Art, Family, Romance and Life.

The star of yesterday’s cultural event, Margrit Mondavi

Margrit, wife of the late Robert Mondavi, has created a collection of personal stories and sketches based on reflections about her life with Robert in the Napa Valley.

Margrit’s stylized drawing of the winery

The book is written in the spirit which Margrit and Robert brought to the winery; they always believed that food, wine and the arts need to be celebrated in everyday life – and all together. 

Margrit painting for Sketchbook

Margrit has illustrated many anecdotes in Sketchbook with her own watercolor images.

Janet Fletcher, who lives in Napa town, is co-author of Sketchbook

Foodwriter Janet Fletcher, who has written more than a half-dozen of her own food books, many of them award-winning, was Margrit’s co-author on Sketchbook, helping to give it structure and flow.

“We worked on Sketchbook for more than a year,” Janet told napaman, “and I kind of wished the project would never end. Margrit and I had a great time working on the project together!”

A number of close friends and family members also added to the memoir. French Laundry chef/owner Thomas Keller wrote the forward.

Margrit signing books at the launch reception yesterday

$10 from the sale of each book sold at yesterday’s signing was earmarked for the Napa Valley Opera House, an example of Margrit’s ongoing cultural support to the community.

Margrit and Robert Mondavi, 2005. I took this shot at the winery, on the occasion of Robert being awarded the French Legion of Honor for his lifetime work in advancing wine knowledge and appreciation.

Talk about cultural support; Margrit and Robert started the Robert Mondavi Winery Summer Concert Series in 1969 to bring first-class music to the valley and to support local musical development. 

Over the Summer Concert’s 43-year history, more than $2 million in proceeds have been earmarked for local musical education and enrichment; funds have been steered to support the Napa Valley Symphony, the Napa Valley Opera House and the Napa Valley Unified School District.

More than 300 guests showed up for the book reception and launch of Margrit’s Sketchbook

Margrit Mondavi’s Sketchbook: Reflections on Wine, Food, Art, Family, Romance and Life is available for $35 on amazon.com and also at the Robert Mondavi winery.

Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! NO, It's Yowayowa!

For half-a-year, I have been enjoying a most original, deliciously visual site called Levitation.

A young Japanese photographer, Yowayowa, captures her own image in various stages of "flight," though what she is actually doing is jumping at the instant her image is captured.

I signed up for Yowayowa's RSS feed -- so whenever she posts online, I get an email with her latest photo. Yowayowa's are some of my most eagerly awaited emails and they ALWAYS bring a smile to my face, even sitting at my computer alone... her shots are original and whimsical.

Check out the site and sign up to receive Yowayowa's emails (she doesn't post too often... maybe once every two weeks; since last May, there have only been 16 emails).  

Go to:

http://yowayowacamera.com/

and have some laughs!

If you are interested to learn how "levitation" photos are often made, I discovered a useful backgrounder at: http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/levitation-photography-tutorial/

Gary Taxali - My Favorite Illustrator!

Often, readers ask, “who drew that cool dude?” referring to the iconic character in the upper left-hand corner of this site, who represents me, Napaman, a guy who writes about wine (and food) on the internet.

The answer is: Toronto artist Gary Taxali.

I saw this particular image in an international edition of Time magazine four years ago. I LOVED the image and knew that I wanted it for my soon-to-launch website, napaman.com; it perfectly portrayed, in a light-hearted way, what this site is all about.

I contacted Time, got the illustrator’s name and flew to Toronto to meet Gary. We negotiated a price for his original art and we subsequently became good friends.

Gary is a still-young, highly talented artist/illustrator. There’s almost no week that goes by without seeing one of his images illustrate a story in the New York Times, Business Week, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, or Time.

Or I see his work on a wine label, or on a wind-up toy in a museum gift shop. The guy is everywhere.

And now, Gary has just published two books, compendia of his magazine illustrations and there are no repetitions in the two books – if you like his work, you need to consider buying both. That’s what I just did.

Gary has a weird, wonderful and warped way of expressing life in shades that resemble a vintage comic book; there is an underlying commentary on sex, life, and consumer behavior, and if you study his work, you will see that many of his characters return, time and again, as foils to make another social commentary.

Here’s what’s new:

I Love You, OK? Hardcover, 144 pages, featuring 120 works. This book, exquisitely printed in Italy, measures 6 x 7.5 inches and has text in English, German and French. Forewords by Aimee Mann and Shepard Fairey. $25 CDN (plus shipping) and each copy is signed.

Mono Taxali. Hardcover, 304 pages, featuring 175 works. This gorgeously printed book measures 6 x 7 x 2 inches (very thick book!).  It features four-color printing on laid paper with special varnishes. Forewords by Seymour Chwast, Steve Heller, Charles Hively and Ferruccio Giromini. $65 CDN (plus shipping) and each copy is signed.

The books are available on Gary’s website. To order, or learn more, go to www.taxalionline.com.

Mission Murals: Eye-Candy for the Soul!

 

 Last week, I recounted the story of taking Lisa Rogovin’s Saturday Food Tour through San Francisco’s Mission district. (http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2010/11/mission-impossible-tasting-all-this-great-food-in-one-visit.html)

Part of the tour included a walk down Balmy Alley. Lisa, our food tour guide, introduced us to Patricia Rose, a talented muralist and Mission folk art historian, who shared the stories behind the many colorful murals, which adorn the walls, doors, garage doors and car ports of this neighborhood lane.

You don’t have to be balmy to enjoy the colorful murals on Balmy Alley, named after a successful racehorse. There are 40 colorful murals on this short city lane.

Muralists working within Precita Eyes, a community-based, inner-city, mural arts organization established in 1977, have now spent decades beautifying their ‘hood with large outdoor murals.

The community effort, led in large part by Patricia, is dedicated to bringing the story of human struggle to life in richly colored murals – to share concerns, joys and collective triumphs.

Patricia Rose speaks to our Mission tour group

Patricia leads independent cultural and historical walking tours of the Mission District on weekends, during which time she points out significant murals, describing their meaning.

Details for signing up:

Tours commence at 11 am Saturday or Sunday, and the fee is $12 per person, $8 for college students, $8 for seniors and $5 for teens.

To sign up for a mural tour, contact Patricia Rose at [email protected] or leave a message for her at 415-285-2287.

Make a point of ending your tour at the Community Art Store, 2981 24^th St. where they have a large collection of mural materials, including postcards, posters, T-shirts, maps, eco-bags and books. Your purchase helps fund community muralists buy paints for future projects.

I can’t think of a better way to express what you’re likely to see on a tour than to share what we saw on ours:

 

 

Mission Impossible: Tasting All This Great Food in One Visit!

 

Having recently returned from Rome, where I enjoyed a personal walking tour with a knowledgeable guide, I was ecstatic to take a similar – even tastier! – guided tour of San Francisco’s Mission district last week.

Background: I received a Taste the Mission tour gift certificate from a talented pastry chef, whom I have been mentoring and about whom you will learn more shortly, when her delicious baked goods are ready to be rolled out in America’s gourmet food stores.

The gift certificate entitled me and three others to join the amazing, knowledgeable and oh-so-pregnant Lisa Rogovin, on one of her 3-hour, Saturday-only, walking tours of San Francisco ‘s colorful, Hispanic-centric center, with no fewer than six gourmet food pit-stops.

This is Lisa:

She is as knowledgeable about food and the Mission as she is sweet and charming. Lisa could lead me on a three-hour tour of a fish-packing plant, or an abattoir, and I would be happy, because I would be in her company.

The fact that the Mission is so colorful, so filled with start-up and traditional food firms, is the Big Bonus on her Mission walkabout. (Pay attention: you are going to want to sign up for this tour! Details at the end of this story.)

In an email, Lisa instructed my family to meet the walking group “in front of Mission Minis.”

From the sound of it, I thought we must be meeting in front of the Mission’s Mini car dealership. It turns out that this is the home of the Mission’s exceptionally good, mini-cupcake maker. So much for napaman’s qualifications to stay atop regional food trends!

A young employee, Diego, works the retail counter at Mission Minis on Saturdays

The specialty flavors here are indigenous to the area; I really liked the mini-cupcake flavored with horchata, the modestly sweet rice drink loved by Latinos in the ‘hood. Bakers tweak  the sweetness with nutmeg and cinnamon.

Other original cupcake flavors include Aztec Chocolate, and Pumpkin Spice.

Mission Minis is at 3168 22^nd Street. Tel: 415-817-1540. Find them online at www.missionminis.com.

Then we walked on to Mission Pie, an exceptional corner store in the ‘hood, serving brilliant baked goods.

Lisa asked Karen Heisler, bakery co-founder, to speak to our group to explain the Mission Statement of Mission Pie. Looks like you can’t be in the Mission making Mission Pie without a Mission Statement.

Karen Heisler, co-owner and co-baker of Mission Pie

Karen said that the bakery only uses organic, heirloom wheat and hormone-free butter to make their tasty sweet goods (with emphasis on “tasty”).

Karen talked about the importance of relationships in the workplace and said that Mission Pie makes a lot of room for interns in the business “because whom you work with… and the business practices that you follow… are as important as what you produce… and how good you make things taste.”

One of the best things I tasted on the Mission Taste Tour – the fresh walnut pie at Mission Pie. $19 for a whole pie. A trip to the Mission is not complete without tasting this pie!

Mission Pie is located at 2901 Mission St. Tel 415-282-4PIE. Read more about the bakery’s environmental, social and economic initiatives at www.missionpie.com.

If we were down a quart of carbohydrates at the start of this tour, our tank was about half-full by this point on the tour.

Next stop: a restaurant and another bakery, housed in the same space.

Sign out front; the location is shared by two food businesses – Local Mission Eatery, serving tremendous sandwiches and hot fare, and Knead, a hands-on, artisanal patisserie.

Only open about six months, Local Mission Eatery is the brainchild of Yaron Milgrom, a New York transplant who did his university dissertation in New York on Jewish mysticism, then decided that what he really wanted was to move west and open a restaurant!

Regulars love the soups at Local Mission Eatery

The pastries at Knead are the handiwork of Shauna des Voignes, whose name you may recall from her stint at Ubuntu, in Napa Valley.

Mission Local Eatery and Knead Patisserie share space at 3111 24th Street. Tel 415-655-3422. Check hours and days of operation at www.localmissioneatery.com.

Now we’re walking onward, heading for a seriously good, seriously local, taqueria.

Most pork tacos are called “carnitas,” as the pork for this style taco is fried. By contrast, the pork at Taquerias El Farolito is marinated – which makes a big difference in taste. This marinated pork treat is called “Taco Al Pastor” (the Pastor). From my vantage point, there’s another distinction from carnitas, too:  this is one of the best, greaseless tacos I’ve ever had. Worth a detour to The Mission.

Lisa Rogovin at “the Little Lighthouse Taqueria”

Then Lisa marshaled the troops and we were re off to another bakery.

Jaime Maldonado, whose family owns La Victoria Bakery, is in the foreground, cutting up different house-made pastries. That’s Lisa in the background.

La Victoria Bakery is the oldest Latino-owned business in the Mission. Jaime Maldonado’s dad started the bakery in 1951.

Of all the things, which our group was offered to taste Saturday morning, I thought the Walnut Pie at Mission Pies and La Victoria’s macaroon, were the tastiest items. In a word: outstanding.

If I were ascribing points, as one does to judge wines, the La Victoria Bakery macaroon is a 100-point food item!

The colorful kitchen at La Victoria

One of the signature items at La Victoria – empanadas

La Victoria Bakery is at 2937 24th Street. Tel 415-642-7120.

Then we’re onto something cold, original and delicious: Humphry Solocombe Ice Cream.

Apparently, everyone on the planet who knows anything about cult ice cream knows about this brand. The Mission location, site of production, is ground zero for Humphry Slocombe.

Flavors are as originally named as they are flavorful: I tried and loved

“Elvis, The Fat Years,” which has a banana-peanut butter base, and which is textured with Bacon Peanut Brittle.

I also loved “Secret Breakfast.” Flavored with bourbon, textured with ground crunchy cornflakes, this variety offers ice cream fanatics a natural way to start the day!

Other flavors tasted on our visit:

White Miso Pear

Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee

Chocolate Suicide

Humphry Slocombe is served in some Bay-area restaurants and there is talk of a second location opening soon somewhere in the city.

The ice creams are made with Straus Family organic milk. Ingredients, which can be sourced organically, are. They rotate through a long list of ice cream flavors here, serving a dozen at any one time. The store is open noon to 9 pm daily. Cash only.

Humphry Slocombe is located at 2790 Harrison Street. Tel 415)-550-6971. Visit their website for a list of all the freaky flavors; http://www.humphryslocombe.com/%7C_Flavors_%7C.html

No, we didn’t taste Jimmy The Corn Man’s Corn Whatever…. But I liked the sign and the eponymous reference to me (Jimmy!)

A joy of being on a photographic safari in the Mission with Lisa is the opportunity to see colorful signs and paintings, which pop out to speak to you. Like this and the next sign.

At least 10 minutes have gone by and we have not ingested any new tasty foods or colorful carbs; our combined group blood sugar count is starting to plummet. The group appears to be going into a crash landing of insulin resistance – quick, Lisa! Get us some immediate carbo-shock therapy … take us to nearby Dynamo Donuts!

Opened in 2008, Dynamo Donut and Coffee rotates daily through 30 different flavored donuts, which are fried in organic palm oil.

The only donut which never comes off the rotational menu is: Maple Apple Bacon, which has a cult following. The largest selling variety, it was featured in a recent episode of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” on the Food Network

Dynamo Donut and Coffee is located at 2760 24th St. Tel 415-920-1978. Check out the full list of varieties at www.dynamodonut.com.

Patricia Rose, muralist and Mission mural historian

In addition to introducing the tour group to sensational food, Lisa introduced us to some fantastic eye-candy – the street art of the Mission.

Patricia Rose walked the group down Balmy Lane, detailing the art and history of some 40 different murals.

Rather than speed through them here, I will offer a visual inventory of what we saw in this space next week – it’s something visually delicious to anticipate.

The Information you’ve been waiting for:

If you’d like to take Lisa Rogovin’s Taste The Mission tour or give a friend a gift certificate, contact Lisa by email or phone.

The cost of Lisa’s Saturday-only Mission Food Tour is $75 per person, and the tour runs rain or shine, 11 am to 2 pm. Call Lisa at 415-806-5970 to book space. Or email her -- [email protected]. Or visit her website, www.inthekitchenwithlisa.com, to learn about other area food tours, which Lisa offers.

In Italy, It’s True What They Say….

.... All Roads Lead to… Rigatoni.

I just returned from two golden weeks in Rome where I had some of the best pasta dishes I have ever eaten, drank gloriously of the 2007 Tuscan Chiantis, gawked at life-like sculpture, and rubbed shoulders with 2,000-year-old cultural artifacts.

How good was the trip?

Well, for a brief spell last week, napaman thought of uprooting his life, selling the farmhouse and moving to Italy… to become… romaman! The city does that to you.

I suppose Paris does this to visitors, too, as does London. But these cities don’t have pasta like Rome, which is the clincher for me.

The secrets of a sensational trip to Rome:

1. Stay in Rome the entire time.

Forget the guidebook nonsense about including side trips (Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre, etc.) when you go to Rome.

There is enough art, enough culture, a sufficiency of Roman ruins and enough great restaurants to spend two weeks in Rome and never get bored or find yourself retracing your steps.

2. Stay in one hotel the entire time.

Want to have a GREAT holiday? Stay in ONE place the whole time.

Don’t move around, and only unpack once.

We found a sensational site, www.tablethotels.com, created by designers and architects, which has a Relais et Chateaux sensibility. Tablet.com will help you find accommodation in cities around the world, but in Rome, it was like having a personal assistant.

Tip: Join Tablet Plus, which for $200 a year secures a membership with all kinds of bonuses, inducing free hotel upgrades, and free WIFI.

In Italy, where they charge for WIFI by law (talk about a powerful telecommunication lobby!), our Tablet Plus upgrade, saved us way more than $200 in WIFI charges alone, as well as scoring us an upgrade to a suite at no extra charge.

We stayed at Hotel Fortyseven, (via Luigi Petroselli 47) which also gets a positive thumbs-up recommendation from napaman. The hotel is central to everything; within walking distance of every major site except perhaps Villa Borghese and the Borghese Gardens; the rooms are clean, modern, and the concierge team is first-rate, able to book restaurants, get taxis, and resolve small matters in a moment. 

3. Do not rent a car.

The great thing about Rome is that you can walk just about everywhere.

Spanish Steps? Fountain of Trevi? Roman Forum? The Colosseum? The Vatican? Sistine Chapel? They’re all within walking distance of a central hotel like Hotel Fortyseven.

Most days, we walked seven to eight miles, walking off the previous evening’s carbo-load of sensational pasta.

It is easy to eat pasta two times a day in Rome. What is so fun about the pasta here is that Rome has several of its own shapes of pasta, most with which I was not familiar.

Salvatore Tiscione, chef at da Felice restaurant

This would include a somewhat wavy, long, extruded noodle called tonnarelli, which is tossed with butter, pecorino cheese and freshly ground black pepper to make the simple, yet delicious, dish called tonnarelli cacio e pepe.

Lazio, the province in which Rome is located, and of which it is the capital city, is sheep-heavy, so locals consume much more pecorino here than they do Parmigiano-Reggiano, the cow’s milk cheese of Emilia-Romana. 

The single best version of tonnarelli cacio e pepe, which I had in Rome was at a restaurant called (depending on your guidebook) Felice, or Da Felice, or even De Felice. But it’s located at via Mastro Giorgio 29, if this’ll help you find it.

Other food must-tries in Rome

Rome is ground zero for artichokes (when in season) and there is a constantly waged battle over which is better – carciofi alla romana (braised with garlic, mint and parsley, then drizzled with olive oil), or carciofi alla giudia, or Jewish-style artichokes, which are essentially deep-fried. 

Dal Bolognese

We have a love for Bolognese cooking; Emilia-Romana, the provincial home of Bologna, Parma, Modena, and Ferrara probably produces the best food in Italy. So when we learned that there is a restaurant serving Bolognese cuisine in Rome, we made a beeline for it.

The food is so good, so authentic, and so memorable at Dal Bolognese (Piazza del Popolo 1) that we actually ate here twice, ordering the IDENTICAL dishes a second time:

+ Brodo with tortellini

+ Taglionlini with Bolognese sauce (absolutely authentic sauce, tasting as though there might be ground pork, maybe some mortadella and/or liver in the effort)

+ Bolito misto - a plate of boiled, mixed meats, served with a stunning salsa verde and a version of mostarda di Cremona, a spicy-sweet compote of glazed whole candied fruits.

Or, to put these dishes in picture-speak:

Perilli

For sheer “do as they do in Rome” pleasure, include a visit to Perilli (via Marmorata 39), a family restaurant, which has been serving casareccia fare to locals since 1911.

The windows are frosted to keep prying eyes out; anyone passing would otherwise gawk at the food or the guests (Federico Fellini was a regular).

There is a series of appetizer plates to choose from; the pasta carbonara is exquisite, and the Romans at your next table are as likely to have the latest iPhone as you!

One of the great dishes of Rome is puntarella, a chicory salad splashed with an anchovy/balsamico dressing that brings the greens to life. The version at Perilli is memorable.

Sor Margherita

The receptionist at Sor Margherita, tells patrons that there is anything from a 20-minute to a 2-hour wait.

In the old Jewish quarter, visit Sora Margherita (Piazza delle Cinque Scole 30), a neighborhood restaurant since 1927. It is quirky for two reasons: there is no sign out front to announce its presence, and secondly, you can only dine here if you are a member of the Sora Margherita Associazone Culturale. (It costs nothing to join and everyone who signs dines!). The food is cheap, cheerful and the room is a hoot:

Roscioli

Roscioli (Via dei Guibbonari 21) is a great restaurant, a great wine store, a great retail food outlet. No visit to Rome is complete without at least one dinner here. Maybe two.

They make their own bread (possibly the best in Italy), their wine list is stocked from a nearby underground cellar (which napaman had the privilege to tour) and the menu selections so compelling, you just want to tell your waiter, “One of everything!”

Choose from three different aged Spanish cured hams (jamon)… choose from six different aged prosciutto… choose from salamis, culatello, and fiocco and other cured meats, which are made from free-range, heirloom pigs. Oh, the list goes on, and we’re still only on the appetizers.

Aficionados will tell you that Roscioli’s carbonara is the best in Rome. I cannot deny that it may be. But it may also qualify for World’s Best.

Organic egg yolks are tossed with aged guanciale, aged, farm-specific pecorino, and pepper from Sarawak.

Enoteca Corsi

Near the Pantheon there is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Enoteca Corsi (via del Gesu 87), where locals eat lunch. Period.

It is chaotic, quirky, wonderful and not open for dinner.

 

De rigueur: Go to the retail wine store next door (part of the same family operation), select a 13-18 Euro bottle of killer wine (I love their Chianti selection), and ask them to transport it to your table. The add-on cost to enjoy the wine for lunch is 2 Euros over the shelf price. You can drink like a king here on a court jester’s income.

The fare is fun; this is not yuppified, or cerebralized cuisine. It is just well made, fairly priced food. And sometimes, a meal is just that.

 

Sites

Okay, ‘Nuff about the food. There are sights to see in Rome and rather than go head-to-head with Rick Steves, rating top attractions, or telling you the hours of operation, or giving you the address, let me offer this shorthand version:

As a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s 33,000 words’ worth of my favorite things in Rome:

 

Colosseum

 

Vatican. St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel

Pantheon

Roman Forum

Villa Borghese

 Head here for the Bernini sculptures, including Apollo and Daphne.

They don't permit photos, so the ones here are "borrowed."

For all my life, I never understood sculpture, always preferring paintings to sculpture. But my visit to VIlla Borghese was a true game-changer, opening my eyes to what sculptors can achieve.

I am talking about Bernini (1598 - 1680). There are a number of his works on permanent display here. I stood transfixed before his "Apollo & Daphne," which depicts the chaste nymph being changed into a laurel tree as she tries to flee from the God Apollo. It is totally open-jaw, drooling, stare-time when you are in the presence of this sculpture. You can't believe anyone could ever chisel this setting out of a block of cold marble. It is so life like, so real.

The thing about Bernini is this: he freezes people in their tracks the way modern movie makers freeze a subject, then do a 360-tour of the frozen image (as in the Matrix). But Bernini did it 400 years ago and in marble, not with CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). Bernini makes the marble skin of a subject dimple the way real skin reacts to pressure; he gets the eyes, he gets the energy, he imbues the marble with virtual life-force.

I stood before Apollo & Daphne, and before Bernini's marble statue of David, who is set to fling his sling at Goliath, with my mouth agape. It was like hearing - and understanding - opera for the first time; I got the  same spine-tingling chill one gets when hearing Pavarotti perform Nessun Dorma from Turandot, or Ch' ella me creda from Girl of the Golden West - unforgettable.

 

Piazza Navona

 

 

 

Spanish Steps

And a few incidental shots, which I happened to snap and like:

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, a note about Federico Polidori

While walking the back alleys near the Pantheon, I came upon Federico Polidori's small leather shop. I subsequently found out that Forbes described Federico as "Rome's premier leather artisan for 30 years."

I asked  Federico, who is used to making one-of-a-kind leather bags, holsters for guns, quirky personalized briefcases, to make me a leather and canvass tote bag for use back home.

He has designed one-of leather goods for muckraker and author Carl Bernstein, and half-an-hour after I picked up my leather and canvass tote, Julia Roberts dashed into Federico's place to order a bag. It's that kind of place.

Here Federico and Roberta, his wife, display the bag which Federico made for me over the course of a week.

To contact Federico, email to: [email protected]

His artisanal leather shop is at Via Pie di Marmo 7-8, Rome. Tel: 06-67-97-191.

 

Her Fruits & Vegetables are the Best, even out of Season!

 Lisa Livoni, watercolorist

Let’s get potential conflict of interest charges out of the way:

I know Lisa Livoni.

I have purchased her gorgeous watercolors and love them.

I think she is one of the most talented watercolorists in Napa Valley.

And one more thing: I worked with Lisa last year in a common endeavor, a project called Local Color, in which we tried to get Napa Valley restaurants and wineries to buy her stunning, interpretative art.

Now, the general, art-loving, art-buying public will have a chance to acquire some of her newest paintings. Lisa’s colorful watercolors – mostly of fruits, vegetables, and flowers – are on view at Whiting Nursery, in St. Helena, from today through September 30. The show is called “A Brush in the Garden.”

For the first time ever, Lisa has produced large format paintings, some in the 3- x 4-foot range, significantly larger than the postcard- and letter-sized watercolor paintings, for which she is known.

“Marsha's Inspiration,” 34" x 47"  

“Painting is a very physical thing to me,” says Lisa. “This new larger size let’s me explore how I truly feel about what I am painting… and let’s me revel in my love of color.  I should have moved to the larger painting format sooner, but art is a personal, evolutionary process and I just wasn’t there.” 

"Red Flag," 34"x 47"

As she loves to garden, Lisa has turned to this theme for the watercolors in this exhibition. The words “joyful,” “colorful,” and “fresh” come to mind when viewing the collection.

Where’d she develop her sense of color and her near-compulsion to paint?

“I developed a serious interest in art as a child and feel that my earliest creative influences came from extensive family travel at a young age. This included three years of living in Japan.”

“Anne's Artichoke,” 34"x 47"

After graduating from the California College of Art, Lisa worked as a graphic designer for 23 years. Then, after designing some of California’s most iconic wine labels, she decided to become a fulltime, professional painter, which she has been for the last 10 years.

Lisa’s watercolor images have been exhibited at the I. Wolk Gallery, in Napa Valley, at the William Zimmer Gallery in Mendocino, in the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, and at the Napa Valley Museum, Yountville.

“Quince,” 40"x 35"

Images in the Whiting exhibit range in price from $300 to $5,000 per watercolor.

A reception for Lisa will be held Saturday, July 3, at Whiting Nursery, from 2 to 4 pm. Napaman readers are invited – see you there.

Whiting Nursery is at 738 Main St, St. Helena, corner of Charter Oak Ave. Open Mon. through Sat. 8:30 am to 5 pm, and Sundays 9 am to 5 pm. For information, call 707-963-5358.

Lisa Livoni

If you are visiting St. Helena and are not familiar with the local restaurant scene, be sure to stop at the best restaurant on Charter Oak Avenue, just across the street from Whiting Nursery.

I’m speaking about Tra Vigne, one of the valley’s landmark restaurants. The food, Italian by theme, has never been better here, thanks to the attentive touch of executive chef Nash Cognetti. For a reservation, call 707-963-4444. Tra Vigne, corner Charter Oak Avenue and Highway 29/Main St., St. Helena.

Mission Implausable: Hunting for Mushrooms in Napa Valley

On a Mushroom Hunt in Napa Valley! (Yes, intentionally blacked out – read on.)

My friend Tom Scheibal, who is a local artist, is an ardent mushroom forager.

Over a dinner of fresh chanterelles, which he had just foraged, I asked Tom if I might accompany him on his next chanterelle hunt. His one requisite was that I be blindfolded so that I would not learn where in the deep forest his favorite patch of chanterelles grow – a patch he’s been foraging for 15 years. Hence the shot above – that’s me walking through the forest with a bandana tied across my eyes, on our way to the patch, north of Calistoga.

Mushroom hunting we go! Tom carries a woven, wooden basket in which he will protect his hope-to-be-found treasures… while I wear a blindfold!

After recent, late winter rains, Tom has been picking chanterelles as though he were cropping tomatoes from his organic garden in summer; they’ve been growing like topsy on the wet forest floor. In fact, on his most recent field trip, Tom picked 15 pounds of golden chanterelles (Cantharella cibarius, in case you are taxonomically inquisitive).

He brought them home and his wife, Linda, who is a talented cook, sautéed them lightly in butter, then tossed them with some buttered, egg tagliatelle she had just hand-made. The dish was ethereal, exquisite, light and delicate.

That was the moment, over that plate of pasta, that I asked Tom if I might join him on his next mushroom hunt.

For the record: There are something like 10,000 species of mushrooms in North America, only 250 of which are edible.

“Aha! I think I found one!” says Tom on our field trip into the forest. No, we didn’t see Goldilocks, the Three Bears, or Little Red Riding Hood in the forest, but we sure did find mushrooms.

He was right again!

 

The day's haul.

In case you knew, but have forgotten: a mushroom is a fungus (from the Greek word sphongos, meaning ‘sponge’), not a plant. As such, mushrooms contain no chlorophyll and produce spores instead of seeds. They survive by feeding off other organic matter – the ultimate ‘sponge,’ indeed!

I’m not sure that I would call Tom a mycologist, the word for a fungi expert, but he is certainly a mycophile, someone whose passionate hobby is to hunt edible wild mushrooms.

You aren’t likely to ever taste Tom’s handwork in the forest… we’ve eaten up all the chanterelles he gathered this week, but you can see his latest handiwork this coming weekend; his colorful Horse Head portraits are being exhibited at the Robert Mondavi Winery, starting Sunday March 14.

If you‘d like to attend the opening reception this Sunday, 2 to 4 pm, to meet Tom, sip Mondavi wine and enjoy a few hors d’oeuvres (don’t expect any chanterelles!), you must RSVP by phoning 707-968-2040, or send an email to [email protected], indicating how many are in your party.

See you there. But don't ask me where the chanterelles are to be found, because I haven't got a clue!

They (photo) shoot horses, don’t they?

Calistoga artist Tom Scheibal and two friends

One of the more bohemian, talented persons I know in Napa Valley, Tom Scheibal, has spent the past six months horsing around, so to speak.

Using pastels, feathers, wool, and whatever else he finds in his studio, the Calistoga artist evolved a series of mixed-media panels, of which the theme is WILD HORSES. (This would be a good time to turn up the volume of The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses…”). Many of the images are finished with a luscious, thick coat of clear acetate-like lacquer, which hardens, adding depth to the subject.

 

I was shocked to see how good the series is; Tom, who has become a good friend over the 13 years I have lived in Napa Valley, called one day last summer and said, “I think I am going to paint wild horses.” He announced his decision with the casualness of one who has just skimmed the newspaper, and decided to attend the 8 pm screening of a film. If Tom had earlier been ruminating on the subject of what to paint for months, it certainly was never shared.

I only knew Tom as a sculptor, who had studied in Brighton, England, and as a designer/decorator, who has filled many homes in Napa Valley with brilliant, original and eclectic art. He also designed lawn furniture, which he fabricated on a fairly large scale in Mexico. Until last summer, I never knew the guy had an innate drawing talent, too.

 

This week, in advance of his exhibition at Myra Hoefer Design, in Healdsburg, Tom asked me to photograph some of his newest works for his own portfolio; in a word, they are awesome!

In fact, I was so impressed by his output that I figured napaman readers would want to know about the Healdsburg exhibit, which opens Sunday, January 24 at 2 pm. Tom will be present.

Myra Hoefer Design is located on the town square at 309 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg, CA 95448. Tel: 707-694-2121.

 

I asked Tom what piqued his interest in horses, wild or not.

“I grew up next to a farm in Bellingham, WA, where they kept a herd of majestic Arabian horses. I’ve never forgotten these horses, though I have never actively ridden.”

Tom says that he has also been inspired by Robert Redford’s work to rescue wild horses; as such, part of the proceeds of the sale of images in this exhibition will be donated to several wild horse sanctuaries across the country.