The profound finesse of the wines of Frog's Leap
Monday 25th - We visit John Williams at Frog's Leap in Napa Valley. By Kate
Monday 25th - We visit John Williams at Frog's Leap in Napa Valley.
Monday was the big day.
We left Rohnert Park at the very civilized hour of 9am and drove through hideous commuter traffic on 101 before turning off and travelling through southern Sonoma and Calistoga on our way to Rutherford. The soft morning sun was picking out the different green, gold and brown tones as Napa Valley opened up in front of us and I remembered the road with surprising clarity as I had stayed in Sonoma on my last visit. Surprising as I had spent 90% of my time then hopelessly lost and trying to get my bearings while remembering which side of the road to drive on. I did not always succeed at the latter. Eight years later and I somehow knew where to turn when even before sterling navigator Rebecca said a word.
Before I met Jude, one of the men on the list of those I would most like to have married was John Williams of Frog’s Leap. Please note that he had never given me any indication at all of the fact that he may have wanted to marry me, so this was pure fantasy on my part, but a visit to this winery remains one of my personal all time treats. John is a lovely man, an exceptional wine maker and one of the great organic pioneers of the Californian industry – an early inspiration to me, he planted some of the seeds Green & Blue eventually sprang from.
I was last at Frog’s Leap in June 2000 and although the beautiful old wooden barn which dates back to the late 1880’s and which houses the winery remains, a brand new tasting room, shop and offices plus a vegetable and herb garden have been added since. This has been built and designed with as much attention to detail and consideration for the environment as everything which John does is. Painted soft grey, it is built entirely from reclaimed wood from an old piano factory, with floors from a greenery in Iowa. It has a broad porch running around the outside, with a kitchen, comfortable seating area and room selling nothing but bottles of wine on the ground floor, while the offices are on the second floor . The tasting area looks out over the herb gardens in the foreground with Napa in the background. It is the sort of place which I dream of living or working in and just like the best biodynamic properties I have been to all over the world, there is a sense here of healthy, peaceful energy, restorative and calming. Everything is suddenly perfectly in perspective in at atmosphere like this.
If we lose the deep connection with the living world that pulsates through places like Frog’s Leap, we lose absolutely everything and yet we still don’t, as a race, seem to fully grasp this yet. More people should visit here, or at least places like this.
John came down to greet us and took us round the herb and vegetable garden first, after instructing us all to help ourselves to sun hats in the living room area. Already at 10.30am, the light was merciless. We strolled out into the sun and the buzzing, teaming metropolis of insect life in his garden while we chatted about biodynamics.
He believes in this completely as a philosophy but as a method, he thinks that some follow the principles too blindly. Many of these have been developed for other crops in other climates, often ignoring the fact that in California, it is mostly a fight away from and not towards fertility where viticulture is concerned. Having said that, no-one understands some of the central tenants of these principles – building a vibrant ecosystem and soil health - better than he. He believes that one of the key reasons why so much of what is produced in Napa now is so high in sugar and yet so completely lacking in real flavour has to do with the fact that it is being grown on sterile, dead soil. So instead, wines are fiddled with, prodded, poked and plumped up before being doused in 200% new oak so that the end product lies like a heavy, dead weight on the tongue, utterly lacking charm, complexity or indeed life.
He took us round to where his stock of preparation 501 was stored, in an old wooden chest also housing a tangled heap of cow horns, essential to the making of this. In a glass jar, covered in peat for safe keeping, he shook a tiny amount out into his hand and we passed it reverentially around. This is diluted thousands of times and then sprayed on the vineyards, encouraging healthy microbiological soil life. It smelt as it always does – rich and earthy although this seemed slightly damper and more friable than the 501 I had sniffed and examined at Cullen in Australia last year.
He talked to us about the metaphysical aspect of grape growing – the fact that it is about more than just healthy soil, enough water etc etc. The vine is basically thinking only about firstly how to get all its babies ripe so that the birds will eat the berries and spread the seed, and then about getting through the winter in order to start the whole process again next spring. It knows exactly when to get the grapes ready for the birds, taking constant readings of the moon, the angle of the sun, the planetary alignment and does its best, given everything at its disposal, to create the most delicious flavours possible.
This cycle of life is an impossibility in vines planted badly, in soil that does not suit, or a climate that is all wrong for them, doused in chemicals keeping weeds and other pests in check and fed the equivalent of amphetamine in order to give a semblance of life. Utterly divorced from the natural cycle and losing the ability to properly measure and monitor its own ripeness, the vine is in effect a junkie and its offspring don’t have a hope in hell of maturing properly.
We finished this talk at tubs of the zinfandel which had been picked that morning and was being sorted and crushed. Two days before, we had spent some time looking at the zinfandel growing outside of the Seghesio tasting room, which I could identify immediately as such. The bunches there were entirely at odds with themselves – hard, green berries, nuzzled up to those which were slightly raisoned which lay on top of round, perfectly ripe examples. This is completely normal in most zinfandel which has a notoriously uneven ripening patterns – and yet these containers were heaped with dark blue, perfectly, ripe, glossy fruit, with not a single green berry I could see and only a very few examples of raisoned ones. Basically, proof in fruit form of what John had just been discussing – great mountains of perfectly ripe grapes from a variety that supposedly never ripens evenly.
John then took us over to his vines which encircle the winery to show us his soil. This was basically the same demonstration he had done when I first visited the farm years ago but I don’t ever get tired of seeing it and witnessing it and hearing his discussion on it was one of the main reasons I had bought the group all this way.
All the Frogs Leap vines are dry farmed, something John says was completely the norm up until the 1970’s in Napa, when irrigation was introduced. This quickly took over, being easier and ensuring bigger, plumper grapes (and infinitely less interesting flavours in many cases) no matter how hot or dry the vintage. Of course, encouraging roots to stay up near the top soil where the water is, gives a completely different effect to forcing roots down deep, in search of moisture. ‘Wine is all about a deep expression of the soil’, John said, leaning on his spade next to a row of cabernet. “You cannot talk about terroir in an irrigated vineyard.”
He dug up a chunk of soil which yielded easily, turning over earth which was rich and dark looking under the dry, dusty top layer. It was cool and still felt slightly moist to the touch, despite the fact that it had not rained for months. He practises an old farming technique known as dust mulching, where decomposing cover crops and a top layer of soil help to keep moisture in. We walked over to his neighbour’s vineyard where the soil was a lifeless grey colour and the spade clanged and almost bounced back as John prodded at the soil with it. It was like concrete, and the berries tasted of nothing more than sugar and water. The resulting wine was apparently garlanded in praise scoring sky high in all the stupidly meaningless point systems which count for so much in some markets and selling for considerably more than John’s wines.
We do not need any more examples of the utter insanity of modern life, but here is another.
We left the glare of outside and moved to the long, polished tasting table with the view and the wines in front of us. It truly gets no better.
2007 Sauvignon Blanc
Made as simply as possible, this wine is not oaked and does not go through malolactic fermentation. It is the only Sauvignon made in the Napa Valley which is a mere 12.5% alcohol and quite frankly blows any of the other examples clean out of the fermentation vat.
As we taste it, John explains that the easiest thing in winemaking is to make things bigger. It is the same thing in our lives – not having a great time? Buy more stuff! John favours a much purer, zen like approach – strip away the extraneous and get down to the inner path. He means in life and in wine and this wine is perhaps his purest example of that.
This has very faint elderflower and pink grapefruit aromas on the nose and shows these, plus an utterly pure minerality on the palate. Despite how essentially light and elegant it is, this wine is not even slightly wishy washy, with great length and finish.
2007 Chardonnay
This is oak fermented but again has amazing elegance and finesse with plenty of fresh citrus flavours on top, with only a subtly spiced butter underneath and towards the back of the palate indicating an oak presence at all. Excellent length and spicy finish.
2006 Zinfandel
John believes that once upon a time, all Zin used to be like this – pure, fine and fresh. It is a variety which can be a bit lacking in depth by itself, so like many, he blends his. In this case, Petite Sirah, Grenache, Carignan and Valdigue all go into giving it more.
All his new Zinfandel plantings mix the other varieties in the field and he also believes in co-fermentation, this being the best way to meld phenolic character together . This gets 13 months in oak, mostly American.
Fresh zippy, red and black berry fruit with underlying liquorice and spice, with more mineral spice coming out on mid palate and a fresh, almost herbal finish. Fine and utterly elegant – nothing like the big fat monsters this variety is capable of.
2006 Merlot
John is a great Merlot fan – yet another reason to love him. He believes that it is a far bigger challenge than making Cabernet or Zin - the Pinot Noir of the sauvignon varieties, having lots of delicate red fruit flavours which are easily abused by blending or handling. His approach again is to manipulate it as little as possible, stripping the wine down to its essence.
Earthy red fruit on nose. Plum, delicate earthiness and lots of mineral spice on the palate with fabulous length and a tart, fresh plum finish.
This has long been a favourite Merlot of mine and I am delighted to find that it absolutely still is.
2005 Rutherford Cabernet
The pinnacle of pinnacles as far as I am concerned. Interesting also to note that this came first in the blind tasting we did of top Napa Cabernets against claret last year (and I did not do any hard sell – how could I? The wines were all tasted completely blind) All the fruit for this comes from the Rutherford bench and what John is looking for in this wine is a character that speaks to him of Rutherford. We asked what that was exactly.
Apparently, there was a parlour in his grandmother’s house, reserved mainly for high days and holidays. In it stood a large, old sofa. On warm days, sun would stream through the windows directly onto it and when you tapped it, dust would rise like a tiny display of translucent fireworks. That is the smell of Rutherford. Sun warmed, clean dust. And that clean, warm dust is in this wine - proper Rutherford dust with tannins that are smooth, but smooth with resistance – this wine is categorically not gloop.
No new oak is used on this wine, which is completely the opposite approach to the one most winemakers take, i.e. saving oodles of expensive oak specifically for their best wines.
This is extraordinary and totally delicious. Utterly delicate and elegant red and black fruit with fine, velvet tannins, fresh acidity and a smoky minerality coming out over that and around the edges. The length is fantastic and the finish pure terroir. You really can’t wait to go back for the next sip and it I had not been driving, I wouldve happily spent the rest of the afternoon quietly going back for sip after sip until the bottle was exhausted. And I was fairly tired and emotional myself, no doubt.
2006 Petite Sirah
John explained that he wanted to take this wine back to its source – the south of France, capturing the meaty, earthy,gamey character which this variety is capable of and yet keeping it delicate and drinkable at the same time. He also felt that after 35 years as a winemaker, he has to keep challenging himself and keeping himself fresh.
Usually blended with Zin, this is the first vintage of his single varietal example and it really is delicious – so much so that all of us bought bottles to take away with us. Dense, earthy, peppery nose. Plenty of muscular, earthy flavour and black fruits, tempered by characteristic minerality, fresh acidity and structured but not overwhelming tannins. It is showing amazingly finesse for a big wine in its youth and is truly lovely.
We finished the tasting and headed off to the long trestle table set up under the eaves of the barrel cellar, right by the crusher. Thankfully the Rutherford and the Petite Sirah come with us. Although I couldn’t drink, it was good to have them close. I did momentarily consider throwing caution to the wind, but that really was not a realistic option.
A table full of food made by the wives of some of the Mexican workers stood in the shade of a tree – refried beans, fried chicken, two types of salad and small peppers stuffed with meat and cheese. It was a feast and it all tasted fabulous.
John had to get back to work after lunch and we had another appointment, so after giving Emily a chance to film the flower and vegetable gardens – which gave Jude and I a chance to stroll through them both again, breathing in what Utopia smells like, we left.
I am sure that Utopia often does not feel that way from the inside, living with the sacrifices that have had to be made to achieve it and dealing with the constant hard work it takes just to keep it going, but I really hope more than anything that John gets the chance to enjoy it as often as it humanly possible. He so very much deserves it.
From that high note, we then spent an hour trying to find our next appointment. The address we had been given was not relevant and the one phone number we had was a fax and the other didn’t work. Very strange.
We were very hot. The afternoon had closed in like a dense blanket, made worse by the fact that we were in cars, in fractious traffic. There was an unfortunate finger gesture, shouting incident involving myself and another car but in my defence, I do find American drivers a lot less considerate than most of those in England. Actually, they are often downright rude and the sight of roads clogged with vehicles that could house a small hamlet don’t really make me feel any happier or calmer.
We decided therefore to go and taste at Shafer, but discovered on arriving that it was by appointment only, so instead paid Dean & Deluca a visit for provisions for another picnic by our motorway Motel pool that evening. Despite the ridiculous prices of this deli, which is really pretty soulless, we took full advantage of the air conditioning and spent some time browsing both the breathtakingly expensive antipasti and the other customers.
One was a large, rather hatchet faced woman in a chauffeur’s uniform who was clearly in charge of a limousine parked outside. Another couple had done something extraordinary to their faces. It may have been botox, but what ever it was, it was certainly ill advised. They both looked not unlike eggs with startled expressions painted on to them. Perhaps it was just the D & D prices.
After a sweltering drive back and a quick change, we gathered at a white plastic table around our motorway swimming pool and had a really very splendid dinner washed down by Seghesio Arneis and beer. This was despite the sign clearly stating that no food or drink was to be consumed in the area but we did appear to be the only people beside the family who ran the motel staying, so no-one complained. Early to bed for another big day in the morning.
Monday 25th - We visit John Williams at Frog's Leap in Napa Valley.
Monday was the big day.
We left Rohnert Park at the very civilized hour of 9am and drove through hideous commuter traffic on 101 before turning off and travelling through southern Sonoma and Calistoga on our way to Rutherford. The soft morning sun was picking out the different green, gold and brown tones as Napa Valley opened up in front of us and I remembered the road with surprising clarity as I had stayed in Sonoma on my last visit. Surprising as I had spent 90% of my time then hopelessly lost and trying to get my bearings while remembering which side of the road to drive on. I did not always succeed at the latter. Eight years later and I somehow knew where to turn when even before sterling navigator Rebecca said a word.
Before I met Jude, one of the men on the list of those I would most like to have married was John Williams of Frog’s Leap. Please note that he had never given me any indication at all of the fact that he may have wanted to marry me, so this was pure fantasy on my part, but a visit to this winery remains one of my personal all time treats. John is a lovely man, an exceptional wine maker and one of the great organic pioneers of the Californian industry – an early inspiration to me, he planted some of the seeds Green & Blue eventually sprang from.
I was last at Frog’s Leap in June 2000 and although the beautiful old wooden barn which dates back to the late 1880’s and which houses the winery remains, a brand new tasting room, shop and offices plus a vegetable and herb garden have been added since. This has been built and designed with as much attention to detail and consideration for the environment as everything which John does is. Painted soft grey, it is built entirely from reclaimed wood from an old piano factory, with floors from a greenery in Iowa. It has a broad porch running around the outside, with a kitchen, comfortable seating area and room selling nothing but bottles of wine on the ground floor, while the offices are on the second floor . The tasting area looks out over the herb gardens in the foreground with Napa in the background. It is the sort of place which I dream of living or working in and just like the best biodynamic properties I have been to all over the world, there is a sense here of healthy, peaceful energy, restorative and calming. Everything is suddenly perfectly in perspective in at atmosphere like this.
If we lose the deep connection with the living world that pulsates through places like Frog’s Leap, we lose absolutely everything and yet we still don’t, as a race, seem to fully grasp this yet. More people should visit here, or at least places like this.
John came down to greet us and took us round the herb and vegetable garden first, after instructing us all to help ourselves to sun hats in the living room area. Already at 10.30am, the light was merciless. We strolled out into the sun and the buzzing, teaming metropolis of insect life in his garden while we chatted about biodynamics.
He believes in this completely as a philosophy but as a method, he thinks that some follow the principles too blindly. Many of these have been developed for other crops in other climates, often ignoring the fact that in California, it is mostly a fight away from and not towards fertility where viticulture is concerned. Having said that, no-one understands some of the central tenants of these principles – building a vibrant ecosystem and soil health - better than he. He believes that one of the key reasons why so much of what is produced in Napa now is so high in sugar and yet so completely lacking in real flavour has to do with the fact that it is being grown on sterile, dead soil. So instead, wines are fiddled with, prodded, poked and plumped up before being doused in 200% new oak so that the end product lies like a heavy, dead weight on the tongue, utterly lacking charm, complexity or indeed life.
He took us round to where his stock of preparation 501 was stored, in an old wooden chest also housing a tangled heap of cow horns, essential to the making of this. In a glass jar, covered in peat for safe keeping, he shook a tiny amount out into his hand and we passed it reverentially around. This is diluted thousands of times and then sprayed on the vineyards, encouraging healthy microbiological soil life. It smelt as it always does – rich and earthy although this seemed slightly damper and more friable than the 501 I had sniffed and examined at Cullen in Australia last year.
He talked to us about the metaphysical aspect of grape growing – the fact that it is about more than just healthy soil, enough water etc etc. The vine is basically thinking only about firstly how to get all its babies ripe so that the birds will eat the berries and spread the seed, and then about getting through the winter in order to start the whole process again next spring. It knows exactly when to get the grapes ready for the birds, taking constant readings of the moon, the angle of the sun, the planetary alignment and does its best, given everything at its disposal, to create the most delicious flavours possible.
This cycle of life is an impossibility in vines planted badly, in soil that does not suit, or a climate that is all wrong for them, doused in chemicals keeping weeds and other pests in check and fed the equivalent of amphetamine in order to give a semblance of life. Utterly divorced from the natural cycle and losing the ability to properly measure and monitor its own ripeness, the vine is in effect a junkie and its offspring don’t have a hope in hell of maturing properly.
We finished this talk at tubs of the zinfandel which had been picked that morning and was being sorted and crushed. Two days before, we had spent some time looking at the zinfandel growing outside of the Seghesio tasting room, which I could identify immediately as such. The bunches there were entirely at odds with themselves – hard, green berries, nuzzled up to those which were slightly raisoned which lay on top of round, perfectly ripe examples. This is completely normal in most zinfandel which has a notoriously uneven ripening patterns – and yet these containers were heaped with dark blue, perfectly, ripe, glossy fruit, with not a single green berry I could see and only a very few examples of raisoned ones. Basically, proof in fruit form of what John had just been discussing – great mountains of perfectly ripe grapes from a variety that supposedly never ripens evenly.
John then took us over to his vines which encircle the winery to show us his soil. This was basically the same demonstration he had done when I first visited the farm years ago but I don’t ever get tired of seeing it and witnessing it and hearing his discussion on it was one of the main reasons I had bought the group all this way.
All the Frogs Leap vines are dry farmed, something John says was completely the norm up until the 1970’s in Napa, when irrigation was introduced. This quickly took over, being easier and ensuring bigger, plumper grapes (and infinitely less interesting flavours in many cases) no matter how hot or dry the vintage. Of course, encouraging roots to stay up near the top soil where the water is, gives a completely different effect to forcing roots down deep, in search of moisture. ‘Wine is all about a deep expression of the soil’, John said, leaning on his spade next to a row of cabernet. “You cannot talk about terroir in an irrigated vineyard.”
He dug up a chunk of soil which yielded easily, turning over earth which was rich and dark looking under the dry, dusty top layer. It was cool and still felt slightly moist to the touch, despite the fact that it had not rained for months. He practises an old farming technique known as dust mulching, where decomposing cover crops and a top layer of soil help to keep moisture in. We walked over to his neighbour’s vineyard where the soil was a lifeless grey colour and the spade clanged and almost bounced back as John prodded at the soil with it. It was like concrete, and the berries tasted of nothing more than sugar and water. The resulting wine was apparently garlanded in praise scoring sky high in all the stupidly meaningless point systems which count for so much in some markets and selling for considerably more than John’s wines.
We do not need any more examples of the utter insanity of modern life, but here is another.
We left the glare of outside and moved to the long, polished tasting table with the view and the wines in front of us. It truly gets no better.
2007 Sauvignon Blanc
Made as simply as possible, this wine is not oaked and does not go through malolactic fermentation. It is the only Sauvignon made in the Napa Valley which is a mere 12.5% alcohol and quite frankly blows any of the other examples clean out of the fermentation vat.
As we taste it, John explains that the easiest thing in winemaking is to make things bigger. It is the same thing in our lives – not having a great time? Buy more stuff! John favours a much purer, zen like approach – strip away the extraneous and get down to the inner path. He means in life and in wine and this wine is perhaps his purest example of that.
This has very faint elderflower and pink grapefruit aromas on the nose and shows these, plus an utterly pure minerality on the palate. Despite how essentially light and elegant it is, this wine is not even slightly wishy washy, with great length and finish.
2007 Chardonnay
This is oak fermented but again has amazing elegance and finesse with plenty of fresh citrus flavours on top, with only a subtly spiced butter underneath and towards the back of the palate indicating an oak presence at all. Excellent length and spicy finish.
2006 Zinfandel
John believes that once upon a time, all Zin used to be like this – pure, fine and fresh. It is a variety which can be a bit lacking in depth by itself, so like many, he blends his. In this case, Petite Sirah, Grenache, Carignan and Valdigue all go into giving it more.
All his new Zinfandel plantings mix the other varieties in the field and he also believes in co-fermentation, this being the best way to meld phenolic character together . This gets 13 months in oak, mostly American.
Fresh zippy, red and black berry fruit with underlying liquorice and spice, with more mineral spice coming out on mid palate and a fresh, almost herbal finish. Fine and utterly elegant – nothing like the big fat monsters this variety is capable of.
2006 Merlot
John is a great Merlot fan – yet another reason to love him. He believes that it is a far bigger challenge than making Cabernet or Zin - the Pinot Noir of the sauvignon varieties, having lots of delicate red fruit flavours which are easily abused by blending or handling. His approach again is to manipulate it as little as possible, stripping the wine down to its essence.
Earthy red fruit on nose. Plum, delicate earthiness and lots of mineral spice on the palate with fabulous length and a tart, fresh plum finish.
This has long been a favourite Merlot of mine and I am delighted to find that it absolutely still is.
2005 Rutherford Cabernet
The pinnacle of pinnacles as far as I am concerned. Interesting also to note that this came first in the blind tasting we did of top Napa Cabernets against claret last year (and I did not do any hard sell – how could I? The wines were all tasted completely blind) All the fruit for this comes from the Rutherford bench and what John is looking for in this wine is a character that speaks to him of Rutherford. We asked what that was exactly.
Apparently, there was a parlour in his grandmother’s house, reserved mainly for high days and holidays. In it stood a large, old sofa. On warm days, sun would stream through the windows directly onto it and when you tapped it, dust would rise like a tiny display of translucent fireworks. That is the smell of Rutherford. Sun warmed, clean dust. And that clean, warm dust is in this wine - proper Rutherford dust with tannins that are smooth, but smooth with resistance – this wine is categorically not gloop.
No new oak is used on this wine, which is completely the opposite approach to the one most winemakers take, i.e. saving oodles of expensive oak specifically for their best wines.
This is extraordinary and totally delicious. Utterly delicate and elegant red and black fruit with fine, velvet tannins, fresh acidity and a smoky minerality coming out over that and around the edges. The length is fantastic and the finish pure terroir. You really can’t wait to go back for the next sip and it I had not been driving, I wouldve happily spent the rest of the afternoon quietly going back for sip after sip until the bottle was exhausted. And I was fairly tired and emotional myself, no doubt.
2006 Petite Sirah
John explained that he wanted to take this wine back to its source – the south of France, capturing the meaty, earthy,gamey character which this variety is capable of and yet keeping it delicate and drinkable at the same time. He also felt that after 35 years as a winemaker, he has to keep challenging himself and keeping himself fresh.
Usually blended with Zin, this is the first vintage of his single varietal example and it really is delicious – so much so that all of us bought bottles to take away with us. Dense, earthy, peppery nose. Plenty of muscular, earthy flavour and black fruits, tempered by characteristic minerality, fresh acidity and structured but not overwhelming tannins. It is showing amazingly finesse for a big wine in its youth and is truly lovely.
We finished the tasting and headed off to the long trestle table set up under the eaves of the barrel cellar, right by the crusher. Thankfully the Rutherford and the Petite Sirah come with us. Although I couldn’t drink, it was good to have them close. I did momentarily consider throwing caution to the wind, but that really was not a realistic option.
A table full of food made by the wives of some of the Mexican workers stood in the shade of a tree – refried beans, fried chicken, two types of salad and small peppers stuffed with meat and cheese. It was a feast and it all tasted fabulous.
John had to get back to work after lunch and we had another appointment, so after giving Emily a chance to film the flower and vegetable gardens – which gave Jude and I a chance to stroll through them both again, breathing in what Utopia smells like, we left.
I am sure that Utopia often does not feel that way from the inside, living with the sacrifices that have had to be made to achieve it and dealing with the constant hard work it takes just to keep it going, but I really hope more than anything that John gets the chance to enjoy it as often as it humanly possible. He so very much deserves it.
From that high note, we then spent an hour trying to find our next appointment. The address we had been given was not relevant and the one phone number we had was a fax and the other didn’t work. Very strange.
We were very hot. The afternoon had closed in like a dense blanket, made worse by the fact that we were in cars, in fractious traffic. There was an unfortunate finger gesture, shouting incident involving myself and another car but in my defence, I do find American drivers a lot less considerate than most of those in England. Actually, they are often downright rude and the sight of roads clogged with vehicles that could house a small hamlet don’t really make me feel any happier or calmer.
We decided therefore to go and taste at Shafer, but discovered on arriving that it was by appointment only, so instead paid Dean & Deluca a visit for provisions for another picnic by our motorway Motel pool that evening. Despite the ridiculous prices of this deli, which is really pretty soulless, we took full advantage of the air conditioning and spent some time browsing both the breathtakingly expensive antipasti and the other customers.
One was a large, rather hatchet faced woman in a chauffeur’s uniform who was clearly in charge of a limousine parked outside. Another couple had done something extraordinary to their faces. It may have been botox, but what ever it was, it was certainly ill advised. They both looked not unlike eggs with startled expressions painted on to them. Perhaps it was just the D & D prices.
After a sweltering drive back and a quick change, we gathered at a white plastic table around our motorway swimming pool and had a really very splendid dinner washed down by Seghesio Arneis and beer. This was despite the sign clearly stating that no food or drink was to be consumed in the area but we did appear to be the only people beside the family who ran the motel staying, so no-one complained. Early to bed for another big day in the morning.
