We started off digging in the dirt making a trench, and this is hubby on his knees laying the wall. He is working around a mature lemon tree, which is full of fruit despite all the pickings we've enjoyed. These pictures are a little misleading, because all I've shown are the first ten feet of an 70 foot wall.
And this is the finished product! There are now flowering groundcover plants along the top, too. We'll have to come back in the summer sometime so we can see the whole thing in bloom.
We have been lucky with the weather. Although it is supposed to be the rainy season, known here as winter, most days were dry and warm.
Since this miracle obviously didn't happen in one week, or even two, we did get to take time off. We have friends in the area who were happy to introduce us to the amazing Napa wine valley. I had assumed I'd be seeing farm country, with large fields and the odd farm house along the road. I had no idea that I would be seeing mansions and large estates interspersed with small communities of boutiques and fancy restaurants.
We drove through the valley on a normal roadway, not a four lane highway, and it got very busy. In with all the cars full of tourists and wine tasters were stretch limos and farm trucks. A mind boggling mix! But despite all the traffic and the potential for inebriated drivers, we saw no accidents nor even one police car.
And all around us were the vines. There were no leaves yet as workers were only just finishing up the pruning. Some vines were obviously old and gnarled. Others were newly planted with protectors around their base. But the fields were always precisely laid out. Mustard, planted in between the rows, was just coming into bloom, giving a lovely yellow colour to the fields.
The estate grounds were beautifully manicured. Most of the wineries allow people to wander around the grounds at will. There were often statues in among the hedges and flowering trees. Some wineries have turned their mansions into museums hoping to lure tourists into their tasting rooms after browsing through their family history.
And then we have the castles. Obviously, this is not Europe. These castles have been built, from old stones and bricks imported from Italy, within the last 30 years when Napa became a popular destination for tourists and wine buyers. As a marketing ploy, it's a winner. The castle we toured on a Saturday afternoon was running tours every 10 minutes, with about 10 people per tour. And of course, a wine tasting was included at the end, with a push to buy their wines afterwards.
This tasting room, co-incidently at the castle, is pretty representative of the tasting rooms in Napa. Other than the old brick vaulted ceiling, most wine rooms have the bar with several servers ready to hand out the pre-established "tastings". The ambiance of the tasting room differs with the winery - some are ultra modern while others can be filled with oak furnishings and elegance. The tastings themselves are standard: about an ounce or two of wine per taste, with from four to seven different wines sampled.
Interestingly, Sonoma Valley was a little different. It had less of a "preppie" feel, probably because it was not as well visited as the closer Napa Valley. The roads went through wooded and hilly areas and were winding and narrow. In between the odd manicured estate, we found the family wineries where the tastings were held in the barrel rooms on concrete floors with the grandchildren and family dog in attendance.
In all, we toured the wineries three times. Twice in Napa, once in Sonoma. We managed two tastings per day, but fit in lots of garden and castle tours and a couple of culinary tours, to boot. Gotta be careful we don't take too much time off. The next house job is to remove the livingroom carpet and replace it with wood laminate. In fact, we are ordering the flooring today.......wait, is that a leak I see in the ceiling?
W
