Napa Valley, California - Beringer - 2004 Trip

We stopped at Beringer for two reasons.  One. my husband wanted to take photos of the incredibly beautiful grounds.  Two, they were offering a special tasting of port and chocolate in honor of the Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend.  A regular tasting was also being offered, but the regular tours were closed due to the holiday weekend.  We walked around the gift shop and the outdoor area between Rhine house and the Carriage House before heading into Rhine House for the tasting the second floor.  Walking up the stairs, we stopped to admire, and photograph, the lovely stained glass windows.  The port and chocolate were served in a small bar at the top of the stairs.  We tasted a 1988 Vintage Port of Cabernet Sauvignon with a piece of cherry bark chocolate and a 1998 Vintage Port of Cabernet Sauvignon with a raspberry truffle.  The chocolates really enhanced the experience of the Port.  We bought two bottles of the 1998 as we enjoyed its flavor a little more than the 1988.  We’ve discovered, due to this experience, that a divine way to top off a meal is with a glass of Port and a chocolate.  The tasting was worth every penny of the $10.00 per person we paid.  Please be aware, however, that Beringer only sells its Port through its gift shop and website at the present time.

PS - Since this review originally appeared on my website in 2004, I have found the Port in a few stores though it's still not available just anywhere.

Learn more about Beringer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Snitch in Time by Sunny Frazier

Image
Sunny Frazier always delights, and A Snitch in Time is no exception. She writes the Christy Bristol series in a way that feels lighthearted even in its darkest moments. When Bristol goes on vacation to visit her friend, Lennie, she never expects to get drafted into working for a different department doing her job. Bristol is intrigued enough by the crime at hand that her protestations seem half-hearted at times though her annoyance is very real. When she and Lennie get into a fight, she's left with nothing but the work the department expects her to do. Frazier drops the reader in the Sierra Nevada Foothills creating a sense of isolation that makes the reader cheer for Bristol to stand up to her superiors and get out of there while simultaneously wanting to her to solve the crime. When a witness contacts Bristol via phone she doesn't take her seriously at first only to discover she might have vital information. With suspicion cast in multiple directions, Bristol isn't sur
Read more

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D.

Image
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. pushed my buttons... mostly in the best way. Neff offers her research, her own experiences, and her observations mixed with information from myriad disciplines ranging from spiritual to neuroscience. I had read quite a bit of what Neff offers in other places, but she pulls it together in a way that makes it easy to understand and that makes self-compassion feel accessible and attainable. Her arguments for shifting from self-esteem to self-compassion and self-appreciation were better than I expected. She includes exercises along the way to help the reader access self-compassion. Self-Compassion feels like an introductory course and left me curious about what the research has shown since its publication. Neff supports and explains her premise of the life-changing benefits of self-compassion so well that I began to re-examine my own self-compassion journey with a bit more compassion... Check back soon for
Read more

Creative Knowing: 50 Self-Reflection Questions for Women by Christina Katz

Image
I finally decided to work through Creative Knowing: 50 Self-Reflection Questions for Women by Christina Katz recently. I thought it would make for a nice daily writing exercise, since I'm editing a book right now. I didn't think of it much in terms of "self-reflection" when I started. As I worked through the questions, I had a variety of reactions. You can read about my reaction to the initial set of questions in my blog post, Favorites... Shmavorites . Some questions were easy to answer, others provoked an emotional reaction, still others made me think. Some of the questions made me smile. Others irritated me. Still others inspired me. And then there were those that felt mundane. I felt a resistance rise from time to time as I pondered answering a question. Sometimes that resistance came from my own reluctance to explore the topic. Other times it was because I found the question presumptive when I didn't see how it applied to me. Initially, I was reluctant to
Read more