Napa Valley Quotes

Invalidating a woman’s life choices by saying things like, “Oh, but you’ll regret it if you don’t have kids,” or, “I didn’t think I wanted kids either until I had one,” is like me going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and telling the newly sober that eventually when they grow old, they’ll want to take the edge off with a little gin and tonic and that if they could only just be mature enough to control themselves, they could go on a fun wine-tasting tour in the Napa Valley.

New Rule: The Napa Valley is Disneyland for alcoholics. Be honest, you're not visiting wineries in four days because you're an oenophile, you're doing it because you're a drunk. It's the only place in America where you can pass out in a stranger's house and it's okay, because it's a B&B and you paid for it.

Olive trees grow in the same climate and soil conditions as grapes. The olive oil people have been up in Napa Valley all along, going, “Hey, how do we get a piece of this action?

If you can be happy for the joy in the lives of others, you will find more joy in your own life. Isn’t that neat? That means that instead of telling you that you first need to work on finding joy in your own life so that you can be happy for others, I’m saying, concentrate on the reverse. Be so incredibly happy for others! Things are going well for them! They are happy! You want them to be happy. You want to contribute to their happiness. It’s much easier this way. Trying to wring joy out of your own life right now might feel a bit like trying to wring sweet Napa Valley wine out of a rotten turnip.

It was March in the Napa Valley, just under sixty miles north of San Francisco, and Joy Lammenais’s favorite time of year. The rolling hills were a brilliant emerald green, which would fade once the weather grew warmer, and get dry and brittle in the summer heat. But for now, everything was fresh and new, and the vineyards stretched for miles across the Valley. Visitors compared it to Tuscany in Italy, and some to France

plays a game with his wine-marketing classes at Napa Valley College. The students, most of whom have several years’ experience in the industry, are asked to rank six wines, their labels hidden by—a nice touch here—brown paper bags. All are wines Wagner himself enjoys. At least one is under $10 and two are over $50. “Over the past eighteen years, every time,” he told me, “the least expensive wine averages the highest ranking, and the most expensive two finish at the bottom.

Denver’s first permanent structure was said to be a saloon, and more beer is brewed here today than in any other American city, earning it the nickname the “Napa Valley of beer.” For one weekend in the fall it boasts the best selection on earth during the Great American Beer Festival, a New World Oktoberfest that gathers representatives from the nation’s best breweries to tap over 1,600 different kinds of beer—enough to get it listed in Guinness World Records for the most beers tapped in one place.

Oedipa spent the next several days in and out of libraries and earnest discussions with Emory Bortz and Genghis Cohen. She feared a little for their security in view of what was happening to everyone else she knew. The day after reading Blobb's Peregrinations she, with Bortz, Grace, and the graduate students, attended Randolph Driblette's burial, listened to a younger brother's helpless, stricken eulogy, watched the mother, spectral in afternoon smog, cry, and came back at night to sit on the grave and drink Napa Valley muscatel, which Driblette in his time had put away barrels of. There was no moon, smog covered the stars, all black as a Tristero rider. Oedipa sat on the earth, ass getting cold, wondering whether, as Driblette had suggested that night from the shower, some version of herself hadn't vanished with him. Perhaps her mind would go on flexing psychic muscles that no longer existed; would be betrayed and mocked by a phantom self as the amputee is by a phantom limb. Someday she might replace whatever of her had gone away by some prosthetic device, a dress of a certain color, a phrase in a ' letter, another lover. She tried to reach out, to whatever coded tenacity of protein might improbably have held on six feet below, still resisting decay-any stubborn quiescence perhaps gathering itself for some last burst, some last scramble up through earth, just-glimmering, holding together with its final strength a transient, winged shape, needing to settle at once in the warm host, or dissipate forever into the dark. If you come to me, prayed Oedipa, bring your memories of the last night. Or if you have to keep down your payload, the last five minutes-that may be enough. But so I'll know if your walk into the sea had anything to do with Tristero. If they got rid of you for the reason they got rid of Hilarius and Mucho and Metzger-maybe because they thought I no longer needed you. They were wrong. I needed you. Only bring me that memory, and you can live with me for whatever time I've got. She remembered his head, floating in the shower, saying, you could fall in love with me. But could she have saved him? She looked over at the girl who'd given her the news of his death. Had they been in love? Did she know why Driblette had put in those two extra lines that night? Had he even known why? No one could begin to trace it. A hundred hangups, permuted, combined-sex, money, illness, despair with the history of his time and place, who knew. Changing the script had no clearer motive than his suicide. There was the same whimsy to both. Perhaps-she felt briefly penetrated, as if the bright winged thing had actually made it to the sanctuary of her heart-perhaps, springing from the same slick labyrinth, adding those two lines had even, in a way never to be explained, served him as a rehearsal for his night's walk away into that vast sink of the primal blood the Pacific. She waited for the winged brightness to announce its safe arrival. But there was silence. Driblette, she called. The signal echoing down twisted miles of brain circuitry. Driblette! But as with Maxwell's Demon, so now. Either she could not communicate, or he did not exist.

Her disillusionment with the business had intensified as the need to simplify her stories increased. Her original treatments for Blondie of the Follies and The Prizefighter and the Lady had much more complexity and many more characters than ever made it to the screen, and adapting The Good Earth had served as a nagging reminder of the inherent restraints of film. Frances found herself inspired by memories of Jack London, sitting on the veranda with her father as they extolled the virtues of drinking their liquor “neat,” and remembered his telling her that he went traveling to experience adventure, but “then come back to an unrelated environment and write. I seek one of nature’s hideouts, like this isolated Valley, then I see more clearly the scenes that are the most vivid in my memory.” So she arrived in Napa with the idea of writing the novel she started in her hospital bed with the backdrop of “the chaos, confusion, excitement and daily tidal changes” of the studios, but as she sat on the veranda at Aetna Springs, she knew she was still too close to her mixed feelings about the film business.48 As she walked the trails and passed the schoolhouse that had served the community for sixty years, she talked to the people who had lived there in seclusion for several generations and found their stories “similar to case histories recorded by Freud or Jung.” She concentrated on the women she saw carrying the burden in this community and all others and gave them a depth of emotion and detail. Her series of short stories was published under the title Valley People and critics praised it as a “heartbreak book” that would “never do for screen material.” It won the public plaudits of Dorothy Parker, Rupert Hughes, Joseph Hergesheimer, and other popular writers and Frances proudly viewed Valley People as “an honest book with no punches pulled” and “a tribute to my suffering sex.

In the early seventies I starred in a full-length horror film called 'Killer Bees,' made specifically for television, and although I read the script with trepidation, I ended up thinking it was terrific and said yes. I played a German woman, the mother of Craig Stevens. We shot the film in Hollywood and on location in the beautiful Napa Valley above San Francisco. We saved the scenes with the bees for last, as Mr. DeMille had saved the lion for last in 'Male and Female.' The picture turned out to be a classic in the genre, I think, and it is rerun frequently in America and abroad. People always ask me, 'Weren't you terrified to do those scenes with the bees?' I always want to say, Not as terrified as I was to have a lion put his paw on my back in 1919, but instead I explain that I was really worried only about my ears, so I put cotton in them, and that anyway the bees were sluggish at the start, when they put them all over me, and only came alive as the lights warmed them up. Furthermore, we were told that they had all their stingers removed, but that is the kind of information it is always hard to believe.

Every fall God turns water into wine in France and Chile and the Napa Valley.

Sometimes these non-wealthy non-Northeasterners (“white trash”) manage to stumble out of their shantytowns and trailer parks and Napa Valleys in order to vote, but most of the time they occupy themselves with basic cable, pornography, and the occasional trip to the demolition

A bottle of Stag's Leap Artemis Cab was open and hardly touched. That would be Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, thought Sunny, not to be confused with Stags' Leap Winery or the Stags Leap District. How many hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of dollars did the lawyers get to sort out that tangle of suits and countersuits? And, in the end, it all came down to the placement of an apostrophe. The place where one stag leaps versus the place where multiple stags leap versus the declarative statement that multiple stags are inclined to leap around these few acres where very good Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are grown.

About the Author Native San Franciscan Erika Lenkert fled the dot-community to find respite and great food and wine in Napa Valley. When she’s not writing about food, wine, and travel for the likes of Four Seasons Magazine or InStyle, or promoting her book The Last-Minute Party Girl: Fashionable, Fearless, and Foolishly Simple Entertaining, she’s in search of Wine Country pleasures to share with Frommer’s readers. She also remains subservient to her owners—two Siamese cats and most recently, her new daughter Viva. In addition to this guide, Erika authors and co-authors a number of other Frommer’s guides to California, including Frommer’s California and Frommer’s San Francisco

Just live in the moment and drink in the love like a fine wine that leaves the memories of a million grapes ripening in the sun on the hillside of Napa Valley in the spring.

Part 2: After that, he’d turned to fighting, and not the good kind either. Finn, physically older by seven years, mentally older by about a hundred, had single-handedly saved Sean from just about every situation he’d ever landed himself in. Thanks to Finn, there’d been a lot fewer situations than there should’ve been and it hadn’t been for lack of trying. Fact was, everyone knew Sean had taken the slowest possible route on his way to growing up, complete with plenty of detours, but he’d hit his stride now. Or at least he hoped so because Finn was counting on him in a big way over the next week and Sean had let him down enough for a lifetime. He wouldn’t let him down now. Sean pulled into the B&B’s parking lot and turned to face the crowd he’d driven from San Francisco to Napa. And he did mean crowd. They’d had to rent a fourteen-seat passenger van to fit everyone, and he was the weekend’s designated driver. Oh, how times had changed. “Ready?” he asked. Finn nodded. Pru was bouncing up and down in her seat with excitement. Willa, her BFF, was doing the same. Keane, Willa’s boyfriend, opened the door for everyone to tumble out. It was two weeks before Christmas and the rolling hills of Napa Valley were lined with grape vines for as far as the eye could see, not that they could actually see them right now. It was late, pitch dark, and rain had been pouring down steadily all day, which didn’t detract from the beauty of the Victorian B&B in front of them. It did, however, detract from Sean’s eagerness to go out in the rain to get to it though. Not Pru and Willa. The two raced through the downpour laughing and holding hands with Elle, Colbie, Kylie, and Tina—the rest of Pru’s posse—moving more cautiously in deference to the preservation of their heels. Sean, Finn, and Finn’s posse—Archer, Keane, Spence, and Joe—followed. They all tumbled in the front door of the B&B and stopped short in awe of the place decorated with what had to be miles of garland and lights, along with a huge Christmas tree done up in all the bells and whistles. This place could’ve passed for Santa’s own house. Collectively the group “oohed” and “ahhhed” before turning expectedly to Sean. This was because he was actually in charge of the weekend’s activities that would lead up to the final countdown to the wedding happening next week at a winery about twenty minutes up the road. This was what a best man did apparently, take care of stuff. All the stuff. And that Finn had asked Sean to be his best man in the first place over any of the close friends with them this weekend had the pride overcoming his anxiety of screwing it all up. But the anxiety was making a real strong bid right at the moment. He shook off some of the raindrops and started to head over to the greeting desk and twelve people began to follow. He stopped and was nearly plowed over by the parade. “Wait here,” he instructed, pausing until his very excited group nodded in unison. Jesus. He shouldn’t have poured them that champagne to pre-game before they’d left O’Riley’s, the pub he and Finn owned and operated in San Francisco. And that he was the voice of reason right now was truly the irony of the century. “Stay,” he said firmly and then made his way past the towering Christmas tree lit to within an inch of its life, past the raging fire in the fireplace with candles lining the mantel . . . to the small, quaint check-in desk that had a plate with some amazing looking cookies and a sign that said: yes, these are for you—welcome! “Yum,” Pru said and took one for each hand.

Ciara Alexander thought she had her career all planned out - and she is well on her way to making it as a professional ballerina. Then, her latest fiery performance is immortalized in a beautiful painting, and pulls her in another direction - toward the hunky painter, and starting a family... Brandon’s Artistic Passion, Book 4 in The Underwoods of Napa Valley series.

Gabriel, why don’t you help clear the table,” Carter offered. Courtney snapped her head to Carter. “Please don’t give orders to my nephew. That’s my job.

The Oak Forest mushrooms for the langoustine didn't arrive in time, so we've substituted with enoki mushrooms from Champagne Farms. Also, we are adding an entrée to the menu tonight. It's lemon pine-nut-encrusted sea scallops with a celery mousse and my signature vinaigrette. It took three months to get it right, and the end result is phenomenal. So sell it." Alain paused while the servers took notes. "In wines, we're out of the Napa Valley El Molino, the Talenti, and the Chateau Margeaux '86." Alain paused and, while the servers wrote furiously in their pads, my thoughts wandered. I tried picturing the customers who might have opinions about Oak Forest mushrooms compared to those from Champagne Farms. Did they wear tweed and bifocals? Or were they übermodern with sculpured haircuts and electronic cigarettes? I shook my head, annoyed with myself and my train of thought. Let the mushroom people be mushroom people, I chastised myself. You signed up for this gig, Charlie, remember? You're living your dream, remember? Alain changed gears for a second and threw out a quiz question, one of his more sadistic rituals during family meal. "What are the six ingredients in the jalapeño emulsion we serve with the salmon?" Silence. A blonde in the back ventured, "Jalapeño, olive oil, shallots...?" More silence. "Fleur de sel, ground pepper, lemon juice," Alain finished for her, giving her an icy glance over his bearish nose. "Wake up, people. All right, here's an easy one. What's the difference between jamón ibérico and prosciutto?" Four hands went up, and Wade got it right. "Jamón ibérico is dry-cured from black Iberian pigs in Spain, not to be confused with jamón serrano, which comes from a less expensive white pig. Prosciutto is also dry-cured, but it is from Italy. It is the common man's gourmet ham, which is why we don't serve it." Wade finished with a cock of the head and a high-five with another server. Alain snorted. "Thank you for the editorial comment. Please keep it to yourself, however, when recommending the melon and jamón ibérico appetizer." He spent the next five minutes grilling the staff on the origin of our rice vinegar, what dessert wine paired best with Felix's raspberry brûlée, and the correct serving temperature of the parsnip purée.

He gave her mischievous look.

She told Gabriel to call her G. Mama instead of Grandma because she felt too young for him to call her Grandma, even though she wore floral house dresses and house slippers every day.

What those women do in the name of literature. It gives reading a bad name.

w3Ezas

He stepped across the remaining space that divided them. “So what do billionaire heiresses like to do in the Napa Valley?” She held his gaze. “Right now, probably the same thing as FBI agents from Brooklyn.” Enough said.

He said wouldn't it be brilliant to have a food emporium on the ground floor of Fenton's, like Harrods, but have everything organic and locally grown." Diana paused to let the idea sink in. "I said not the ground floor of course, Fenton's isn't a supermarket, but the basement has been a dead zone for years. A whole floor dedicated to stationery when no one writes letters anymore." "A food emporium," Cassie repeated. "Fresh fish caught in the bay, oysters, crab when it's in season. Counters of vegetables you only find in the farmers market, those cheeses they make in Sonoma that smell so bad they taste good. Wines from Napa Valley, Ghirardelli chocolates, sourdough bread, sauces made by Michael Mina and Thomas Keller. Everything locally produced. And maybe a long counter with stools so you could sample bread and cheese, cut fruit, sliced vegetables. Not a true cafe because we'd keep the one on the fourth floor. It would have more the feel of a food bazaar, with the salespeople wearing aprons and white caps." Cassie closed her eyes and saw large baskets of vegetables, glass cases filled with goat cheese and baguettes, stands brimming with chocolate-covered strawberries.

TIDBIT: At dinner with one of his daughters while researching this book, we learned that Bruce Willis drinks “nothing but Opus One,” a Cabernet Sauvignon-based Bordeaux-style blend from Napa Valley.

He didn’t know it, but he had saved her, and hopefully he would never know the dire straits she’d been in when he met her. She had come to the Napa Valley to find a man like him. She had set her sights on Sam Marshall, but