Sipping California cab in a soaking tub with a city view at the St. Regis in San Francisco. Just the ticket before a wine reporting trip to Napa. Highly recommended pit stop.
Traveling to Napa: St. Regis, San Francisco
Friends are always surprised to hear that I am not a good traveler. The truth is that I am more comfortable at home than most hotels, and I am happier in East Hampton than in less familiar places. I’d rather see people I know on Main Street than strangers on even a fashionable boulevard, and I get mildly annoyed when I go a restaurant where I am not known and can’t sit at the table I’d really like.
But once in a while a tempting wine destination comes my way (or rather I go its way) and I recently found myself traveling to the Napa Valley to meet with some of the local winemakers. Napa Valley produces only a tiny percentage of the wines made in America, but it is by far the most identifiable region, known throughout the international wine world for excellence. I stayed at Meadowood, a resort in the wooded hills near St. Helena, and I concentrated on the wines of the Stag’s Leap District, a small appellation within Napa Valley.
It was a long way to go for someone who does not look forward to leaving the East End so after my flight I stayed overnight in San Francisco before completing the journey north to Napa. With a full schedule beginning the following night, I did not make any definite city arrangements, planning simply to check out a few wine lists in a town known for sophisticated and exceptional food and wine. And that turned out to be a good decision.
The first wine list was logically and conveniently in my room at the St. Regis Hotel. This is not your mother’s St. Regis, or for that matter, Fifth Avenue’s St. Regis. Although it shares a name and ownership, the San Francisco version is in a new building, open only a year, and sleek, sumptuous and posh in design and amenities. My senses were in high gear. The good taste all around me was plenty for the wine list to compete with.
Wanting wines that were innately and distinctively California in style, I started with a half bottle of a 2004 cabernet sauvignon from Justin Vineyards and Winery, a producer in the Paso Robles region of California’s Central Coast. It reflects a characteristic California winemaking sensibility: juicy, ripe, velvety and supple. It struck the right note, especially while I relaxed in a deep soaking tub with a marvelous view of the city. The wine retails for about $25.
I met a friend later in the stylish lobby bar of the hotel, and though it was tempting to order some trendy cocktail in that setting we decided on a bottle of Carpe Diem 2003 chardonnay, produced in the Edna Valley, near San Luis Obispo. It is a fruit-forward wine with clean scents of peach and apricot, just enough tender oak, and a sensuous, creamy composition. Carpe Diem, after some ups and downs over the years, seems to have found its strengths. Burgundy is the model, and chardonnay and pinot noir are the polestars. Their current vintage of chardonnay (2004) sells for about $26 and the 2004 pinot noir for $31.
Both my San Francisco wine choices made me feel welcome to California and put me in a suitable wine drinking mood—exactly right to continue the next day to my destination in the Napa Valley.
