This message is an extension of the thread about corkage fees.
If you're a serious wine tourist, the best season to have lunch at a nice restaurant in either Napa Valley, or Sonoma, or Healdsburg, is February to April.
That's when the restaurants are filled with winery owners, winemakers, and deal-makers (the suppliers to the industry).
The chatter is deafening and the rumors fly rampant. At your next table might be Fred Franzia, creator of "two buck chuck", or any of the "stars" of the "cult" scene.
It's just like the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel back in the days of Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer, the old studio bosses.
I've been in this business for nearly thirty years, have met and even befriended some of the greats (Andre Tchelistcheff was a special friend, so special for me and my career, I can't even comment); yet even now I'm still starstruck. Perhaps it's the money. Wine, like Hollywood in the '30s and '40s, has become big business.
I see my own career as having been a comptent cameraman (read: winemaker) of the Silent Era, with a few early 1980s Wine Spectator accolades to my credit.
But now it's the Golden Age.
Over broccoli soup you can really get an earful of who's hot and who's not.
I hosted the winemakers of Beaulieu last spring, along with my French barrel supplier (Beaulieu is one of our best customers), and for laffs I brought along a bottle of Two Buck Chuck Cabernet (corkage fee: obvious!).
At the very next table was Fred Franzia with another winery owner/client, who shall remain nameless. It was equally obvious that we had to eventually introduce ourselves, somewhat chagrinned, but laughing, at the conclusion of our lunch.
It's great fun. If you like to play the star scene (and I honestly don't), you must come when the stars are out, and the deals are hot, during February-April.
The beauty of this business is that even now you can run into Robert Mondavi or any of your favorite winemakers, in these very public venues.
And, if the opportunity presents itself, you may have a chance to share a drink with them.
If that's your desire, Feb-Apr is the time frame. And Rutherford Grill (in Rutherford), or any of the myriad, superb restaurants in Yountville, or Pinot Blanc in St. Helena, or one of several choices on the plazas of Sonoma or Healdsburg, you may find them.
Every day. For three months. The barrel and cork and label and capsule and bottle suppliers are entertaining winemakers every single day.
I walk into a typical restaurant at lunchtime, and there's nobody from outta town. It's all winemakers, winemakers, growers and salesmen from the barrel/cork/packaging companies.
This has become the ritual of the wine business. Be there or be square!
---Bob