This would be my first visit to a vineyard, Arger Martucci is a small family winery in the small town of St Helena, Napa Valley. Thud, Vinogirl and I would be having a tasting session and what a beautiful setting it was.
We sat around a table shaded slightly next to a swimming pool, the vineyard was not what i expected but Thud had said that he wanted me to see a small Vineyard before we went to a more commercial big scale winery. Arger Martucci was set up by two friends and their wives who still run it today. They produce several wines, Chardonnay, Viognier, Syrah, Pinot Nior, Cab, Cab Franc, a couple of Blends and a Rose. We sampled 4 wines, although Vinogirl point blank refused to sample the Chardonnay, "Life's to short to drink Chardonnay" were her exact words. I hate to say it but she was right as this wine did not impress at all. There seems to be this love hate feeling toward Chardonnay and on this occasion there was no love lost here.
On the table was the obvious spit bowl and true to my words i would not be spitting, even though i really wanted to rid my mouth of the Chardonnay bit the bullet and took it like a man tipping the rest of my glass away. The Syrah did nothing for excitement and was rather feeble in the mouth however the Pinot Nior had a lasting finish and had more body. When it came to the Cab my only thoughts were how nice the chocolate was, yes chocolate it seemed to be more of a focus when given the sample the excitement of tasting the Cab with a block of Dark Chocolate. Im a fan of Chocolate and Red but i came to Napa to taste wine, if i wanted to eat chocolate id have gone to Cadbury's world!!
The overall experience was great, very personal and a great start to experience a working vineyard. The winery was preparing for harvest as you could see staff cleaning the equipment close by. With a relaxing atmosphere there was a hint of excitement in the air as you could sense that wine making was about to begin in a few weeks time.
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