Went up with Calvin to Napa Valley today. What better way to celebrate the 4th of July than visiting a winery? Lots that we didn't think of obviously. So we headed up to Napa and bounced around trying to find a good winery tour place. We missed Beringer, got denied but Sutter (no winery tour), Sequoia Grove (no winery tour, or the only one for today passed, rather), and finally settled upon Mondavi. I had taken the basic Mondavi tour before but I knew that Mondavi, at least, had many tours throughout the day and it was a safe bet. After a slight history lesson by the tour guide, we went out into the fields to take a look at the plants (above). The rows go on forever and ever, it seems. And that one fan in middle prevents 10 acres of grapes from being frost bitten. cool.

On to the wine processing facility! It was dark here so I had to be the best human tripod I could to get a long-exposure night shot. There are 65 of those ginormous oak barrels fermenting them some goood wine in there. Picture to the right shows one of those big oak barrles up close. The entire place reeked of oak, actually, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your olfactoral (is that a word?) preferences.

Some more long exposure shots, these of smaller oak barrels that store and age the wine. I figured there must have been something like a couple million dollars worth of wine in this room since most of the high end $50-$100+ wines come from this napa part of Mondavi. Lots of oak barrels...yup...lots...

After the tour, we got to do some wine tasting. If I remember correctly, there were three reserves wines we got: a Carneros 2001 Chardonnay, and similar year pinot noir and a cabernet sauvignon. I liked the Chardonnay quite a bit...chunks of apples and hint of peach for me. The pinot noir was well balanced but wasn't as memorable as the chardonnay. tour guide let us try decanted and in-the-bottle versions of the cab. The difference is surprisingly noticeable. Most people preferred the decanted version (as did I). I'm a fan of the Fumé Blanc but that was not offered as a discount. For anyone who likes a clear yet still slightly fruity white, the 2001 Fumé Blanc from Mondavi is excellent and one of the better whites I've tasted.

After getting back from Napa, Calvin and family invited me to dinner. Thanks! We met up at Cupertino Village (famous to all Asian South Bay inhabitants) and got some grub at the Joy Luck Palace, with Calvin's mom pushing food at me in the honorable Chinese way. I obliged somewhat as the human trash can but didn't actually eat that much (compared to my gastronomic records of yore). After dinner, Calvin wanted a shot of him in the M Roadster. Sadly, my camera, the lighting, the flash, and my photography skills blow. A couple more long exposure night shots (blurry!) was the outcome. Still, you can sort of make out Calvin and if you squint reeeeeeeeeeeeal hard, you might be able to see the M Roadster.

Since I was on a night shot rampage, I decided to pull out my camera as I was driving and wave it around during a night shot sequence. What came out was the obligatory "wild lights" type of image that is totally meaningless and completely gimmicky. Yay. Now if only I can fix the backlighting on my M Roadster instrument cluster then I could get a glowing shot of the interior of the M at night. Done a million times before but I want my own!