An Educational & Gastronomical Tour of Northern California

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Day 13, September 22 - Beringer Vineyards and CIA Lunch

This beautiful Tuesday morning, our caravan joined the traffic headng up the valley towards St. Helena. In some of the vineyards workers were peeling back leaves over huge clusters of grapes to allow the sunshine to better reach them. The harvest goes on until the end of October

Beringer Winery was started in 1877. Our guide, Eric, met us and led on an exciting, informative and delicious tour and tasting. The property was first settled in 1852 as a farm by the Hudson family. The Beringer Brothers, Frederick and Jacob, came to the area in 1870. In 1876 for $14,500 the brothers purchased 215 acres between the river and the mountains to the west which included 30 acres of grapes. Now land sells for $250,000 per acre! They have produced wine every year since 1876 and are the oldest continuing producing winery. Even during the 14 years of prohibition they had a contract with the Catholic Church for sacramental wine.They also produced wine for medicinal use that could be obtained by prescription.


In 1877 they began tunneling caves into the hill where wine could be stored at a constant temperature of 58 degrees. The tour proceeded into these volcanic rock caves which took eight years to dig by hand. They tunnel into the mountain 1000 linear feet. Beringer still currently stores 200 barrels in the cave but stores 52,000 barrels in their facility across the street. A lot of interesting facts we learned included: it takes 2 1/2 pounds of grapes for one bottle, one ton of grapes makes 2 1/2 barrels or 800 bottles. The vineyard grows 4 to 5 tons of grapes per acre. In 2000 Fosters beer (Australia) purchased the company.
Eric led us into a room in the cave where beautiful wooden tables were set with glasses ready for the tasting. He provided us with a good deal of information about the various growing areas, what types of wines they produce, how to read the labels (front and back) and what is required by law. It was a most enjoyable tasting of various reds and whites.
After the tasting we wandered through the gift shop, retail area and the grounds of the winery with tiers of perfectly manicured shrubbery, fountains and flowers.
Among the other buildings on the grounds was the Rhine House built in 1882. Its main attraction was the beautiful stained glass windows throughout the house.





Right next door is the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone where we enjoyed an elegant lunch from a specially chosen menu for our group. This was another notch in the "Gastronomic Experience" of the Caravan. Following six choices from there temptation menu (we each had a bite or taste), we enjoyed the main course followed by desserts. Rather than describe the menu I will let the photographs speak for themselves. It was superb!!













The dessert was considered "licking plate" good and some did. If you are ever in the St. Helena area of Napa Valley be sure to include a meal at CIA.








Overloaded cars (with wine) and caravaners (with food) had free time to explore the area

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers