Napa Day Trip

We had such great fun viewing the California poppies 2 weeks ago that when H suggest going to Napa Valley for Mustard festival, I agreed.

Along the way to Napa, we saw patches of yellow mustard flowers blooming along the freeway and we got quite excited. But our excitement soon faded when we drove on Highway 29. There were no mustard flowers in any of the vineyard!

We were somewhat disappointed, but figured since we were in Napa Valley, we would drive around and do some wine tasting instead. We stopped by St. Supery and found it was closed. Then it dawn on us it was Easter Sunday! Most of the smaller winery were closed.

We stopped by V. Sattui but none of their wine offering seem exciting. Finally, we went to Beringer Brothers and did tasting there. Beringer Brothers offered 3 glasses of wine for $10, which included a free wine glass.

We shared 2 white, 2 red and 2 sweet wines. I did not take note of what we were drinking, so could not describe the wines in any detail. Beringer Brothers had thoughtfully setup an outside tasting area. It was cool but sunny, which made for perfect weather to soak in that laid-back wine country feeling.

For lunch, we decided to try Rutherford grill(menu). We shared a cream of wild mushroom soup, Grilled "Hacked" chicken salad and grilled Ostrich with broccoli and mashed potatoes. I especially enjoy the grill Ostrich and the broccoli. Please see my review on Yelp! for more details.

After lunch, we stopped by St Helena Olive Oil Company, located just across the street from Rutherford grill to taste their flavored mustrad, olive oil and vinegar. H enjoys spicy food and bot of us liked the jalapeno flavored olive oil:)

Our next stop was at Mumm. The mustard festival photography contest was being judge at Mumm and I had wanted to look at pictures. I usually do not go to Silverado trail on my visit to Napa, so I especially enjoyed the drive. Mumm had a small but lovely collection of Ansel Adam's photograph on displayed when we visited and the entries for the Mustard festival were placed on the ground, waiting to be judged.

The final stop of the day was at Copia. When we reach the museum at 4pm, most of the events had concluded. This was H's first visit to Copia, so we went to look at Forks in the Road. I enjoyed this exhibit the most on my last visit, but they had taken out some of the new world vs old world food section of the exhibit which I enjoyed the most. We browsed through the exhibit quickly and headed out to the garden to look at herbs and fruits. In my opinion, Copia is less exciting now compare to my previous visit 2 years ago. I will not be back.

We headed back towards San Jose after visiting Copia because I had a prior commitment.

We were both a little disappointed we did not see mustard flowers at Napa. But the weather was great and we had fun doing various tasting.