Inside Napa Valley - Summer Fall 2018

inside

napa valley Summer/Fall 2018

season OF

THE

plenty Summer 2018 1

In this issue

5

14

21

An electric dream on wheels

5

Climbing the walls

7

Tackling Mount St. Helena

8

A life of community service

11

Yoga and Pilates for everyone

15

Meet your neighborhood

18

The Valley’s “it” photographer

23

Getting to know you: Sheriff John Robertson

26

On the fire front line

28

Dogs lead the search

32

Great estates

36

Living the Life

38

What’s brewing at the winery

42

Crossword puzzle

54

Where in the Valley

56

Gratis Vineyards: Planting a dream

63

A taste of France in the Valley

66

To advertise in Inside Napa Valley, please call us at 707-256-2228 | A publication of the Napa Valley Publishing Company

Celebrating all things Napa Valley N O R M A KO S T E C K A Ad ve r ti s i ng Di re ctor

S

ummer is in full swing in the Napa Valley, but the fall is in sight, and with it the fabled season of Crush. The grapes are almost ready; are you?

In this edition of Inside Napa Valley, we’ll have a look at some of the people who use those precious Napa Valley grapes, introducing you to a winemaker that uses a European approach to business, and a grape grower who also NORMA KOSTECKA happens to collect exotic trees.

We’ll visit with a couple of interesting businesses, including a new electric bike showroom and

a winery that’s doubling as a up-and-coming brewery. We’ll ask some fitness studio owners to explain what Yoga and Pilates are really all about.

Rock climbing is a popular hobby these days and we talk to a climber who loves the challenge of Mount St. Helena, and we check in on Napa’s only indoor climbing facility.

Last edition, we profiled Napa’s small but mighty ranks of female firefighters. This edition, we’ll hear from those women about the unforgettable night in October when the firestorms descended upon us. And we’ll hear from a couple of the search-and-rescue dog handlers who raced to Wine Country to help

locate victims of those fires.

Also this edition, we’re kicking off a new series, profiling the quirky and distinctive neighborhoods that define the Napa Valley.

That joins our regular Great Estates and Getting to Know You features.

All of that and we’ll also bring you a digest of some of the best of our wine and food coverage from the Napa Valley Publishing family of newspapers.

So please join us in celebrating summer in the Napa Valley, with the latest edition of the award-winning Inside Napa Valley magazine.

On the cover: Photo courtesy Bob McClenahan Photography. www.bobmcclenahan.com.

Summer 2018 3

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Life on

two wheels K I R K K I R K PAT R I C K

Pedego Electric Bikes bring biking fun to the masses If Pedego electric bike franchise owner Brad Dropping has his way, his new store will introduce a whole new way to get around the Napa Valley, whether it’s for business or pleasure.

“The electric bike craze has happened,” Dropping said recently, after opening his new store at 980 Pearl St. in downtown Napa.

Pedego is an extensive line of user-friendly electric bikes designed for the casual cyclist.

“I wanted to open up a bicycle shop that’s different from other bike shops because it’s for the normal person, not the cyclist,” Dropping said. “I want to start on the angle of bringing back the fun to biking, which is what Pedego bikes are all about.

It’s fun to have the wind in your hair, he said, and Pedego bikes are all about that.

I took one for a spin and sure enough, the Pedego bikes are just as described: Easy to ride and a whole lot of fun. You can use pedal assist or just go in electric mode using the throttle near the right hand grip.

Having pedaled a bike before, I opted for the electric mode and was surprised how quickly the bike accelerated to its top speed of 20 mph. A small display on the handlebars tells you how fast you are going, how far you have traveled and how much battery life you have left.

“Pedego has a governor on all their bikes that limit their top speed to 20 mph,” Dropping said. “That makes them Class 2 bicycles and that means they are allowed on all bike paths in California, including the Vine Trail.”

“We’re going to be marketing to

J.L. Sousa, Register

Some of the electric rental bikes available at Pedego Napa Electric Bikes that Brad Dropping recently opened in downtown Napa.

the non-cyclist, the people who just want to ride a bike again. Maybe these people are intimidated to walk into a bicycling store because there are pictures of the Tour de France and professional cyclists. That’s not us. We’re not going to have big-screen TVs with international bicycle races going on. We’re going to have normal bikes that are electric for normal people,” he promised.

“I love their bikes,” Dropping said. “They’re colorful, they’re fun and there are all kinds of different models, including tandems and trikes. They even have folding bikes for people who travel.”

New technology is improving the market for electric bikes. He said electric bike batteries of old were expensive and degraded quickly, making the bikes a poor investment.

“We’ve had a love-hate relationship with electric bikes over the years,” Dropping said. Pedego bikes can go twice as far or more on a charge, and after two years can still operate at 98 percent efficiency.

“Depending on your weight and the terrain,” he said, “Pedego bikes can take you 20-40 miles before needed a recharge. The chargers plug into a normal outlet, so you can carry them with you. But with the great range they have, you shouldn’t need to recharge them on a ride unless you are commuting between Napa and Calistoga,”

The batteries take 4 hours to recharge if they are totally dead.

Dropping, who also owns and operates Napa Valley Bicycle Tours, said he’s seen his electric bike rentals increase by 300 percent last year, and 400 percent year-to-date over 2017. He introduced Pedego to his rental line in April, and opened his new Pedego store in June, with over 60 models available for purchase, rental or bike tours.

He said customers could buy the bikes on the spot and ride them home, or, can pick up a bike that they customized online. You can pick your style, size, color, wheels, tire colors and what kind of drive you want, Dropping said.

“These bikes can be used for pleasure or for commuting,” he added. “Electric bikes are great for commuting, especially in a town like Napa, because no one wants to get to work sweaty. You can put big baskets on the front, and panniers (saddlebags) on the back. “ Dropping said he did a lot of research on Pedego bikes before deciding to represent the brand in Napa.

“I loved their concept so I flew down to L.A. and I met all their people, I saw how they operated and I could see they knew what they were doing,” he said. “All bikes these days are made overseas, and most companies just pass the boxed

bikes along to retailers and consumers unopened and uninspected, but Pedego opens all their boxes and makes sure all the bolts are tight and that all the electronics work. They also ride the bikes before you ship them out. So when we get them, they’re ready to go. You just put the adjustable handle bars and pedals on and you’re ready.”

“The batteries are locked so they can’t be stolen,” Dropping said.

Pedego has its own proprietary lock for its bikes, which comes with a guarantee. “If you buy their lock with the bike, they have a warranty where if your bike is stolen with a Pedego lock, they will replace it within two years. It’s a $139 lock, which sounds like a lot, but you’re not buying a lock, you’re buying a two-year insurance policy.”

Pedego electric bikes are more expensive than a normal bike. Dropping said many empty-nesters are selling their second cars and using a Pedego instead, which saves a lot of money considering they don’t have to be registered and don’t required gasoline, which is becoming more expensive all the time.

“They retail from as low as $2,300 for the comfort cruiser with throttle only,” he said, “then they go as high as $5,500 for the full-suspension electric mountain model which is a pretty gnarly bike. Those prices are actually much less than other electric bike companies charge for something similar. But you can get pretty much all the bells and whistles you would want for right around $3,000.”

“Pedego has gone from one store to 120 stores in seven years,” Dropping said. He predicted electric bikes would capture 30 percent of the total bike market in the near future.

“I also see opening up bike-share locations in downtown Napa with electric bikes,” he said.

Summer 2018 5

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Rockzilla

Rockzilla owner Dwayne Robertson opened the climbing gym 11 years ago.

J.L. Sousa, Register

will have you climbing the walls K I R K K I R K PAT R I C K Before you take on the hazards and challenges of outdoor rock climbing, you might consider spending time at Napa’s only climbing gym, Rockzilla.

Owner Dwayne Robertson said the 8,000-square-foot facility was opened in 2007.

“I had been looking for space for the business, and we opened as soon as this space became available,” said Robertson, a Southern California transplant.

“I’ve been a rock climber all my life,” he said.

Robertson says Rockzilla caters to climbers of all ages. “We get a lot of business from the older group but also a lot of young kids and parties.”

But if you’re someone who has never taken on a rock wall, Robertson and his staff give every beginner basic instruction and before turning them loose.

“A lot of people take to it easily. You just get them on a rope

J.L. Sousa, Register

Keri Loewen, center, belays her daughter Allie, 10 at left, at Rockzilla Climbing Gym as her son Elija, 8, waits his turn.

and away they go,” he said.

Rockzilla offers two kinds of climbing — rock walls for beginners and bouldering with beyond vertical challenges for older and more experienced climbers. Climbing the walls attached to ropes is safe for kids, but bouldering is not, according

to Robertson.

“I don’t allow kids on the boulder unless they are at least 16 because they don’t use safety ropes. We probably have more people coming in to climb on the boulder than using ropes,” he said.

Robertson said prime time

for climbers is late afternoon and evening due to school and work commitments. Rockzilla is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Drop-in rates, which are good for all day, are $22 for individuals who require climbing gear, or $17 for people who have their own.

Monthly memberships are $65 for individuals ($55 for EFT), $120 for couples or $220 for families. Three-month and six-month memberships are also available.

If you want to host a climbing party, it’s $250 for 15 climbers, $10 per climber over the 15-person limit. You can bring your own party supplies, and the fee includes 90 minutes on the climbing wall.

Rockzilla is located at 849 Jackson St., Suite 5A in Napa.

Their phone number is (707) 255-1500 and their website is www.climbrockzilla.com.

Summer 2018 7

Climbing CLOSE TO HOME K I R K K I R K PAT R I C K

Mount St. Helena offers rock options for all Mount St. Helena is known for many things, one thing being a mecca for rock climbers in the Bay Area and beyond.

Although some of the more popular climbing areas, including “the Bear,” were heavily damaged in last fall’s fires, reports from local mountain climbers say it’s safe to climb again.

Noe Zepeda, a 26-year-old veteran rock climber from Santa Rosa, has climbed many of the routes on the 4,341-foot peak at the intersection of three counties: Napa, Sonoma and Lake. Many of the climbs have exotic names such as the bear, the bubble, hailstone arête, table scraps, kidnapped, rampage, Silverado squatters, Jesus Christ superbolter, beast of burden, solar power and more.

Zepeda said the bubble, a 65-foot rock wall, is one of the first outdoor climbs he ever attempted.

“The bubble is a crag I did with a group of people,” he said. “After that, I started exploring some other popular areas, like the one called the bear.”

The bear and the bubble each offer several different climbing routes.

The bear received a lot of attention from the local rock climbing community in recent months to repair the fire damage from last October, according to Zepeda.

“The heat had loosened the rock, so a handful of area rock climbers instituted an ‘adopt a crag’ program where they have been clearing paths and trails, 8 Summer 2018

J.L. Sousa Register file photo/2008

removing loose bolts and bolting new routes.”

He explained that rock-climbing bolts are different than pitons, which are used in mountain climbing.

“You drill holes every 20 feet or so, and secure the bullet in place with epoxy.” Zepeda said climbers use devices known as “quickdraws” to clip to the bolt on one end, and connect to ropes and harnesses on the other so they are provided a measure of safety in the event of a fall.

And rock climbing is inherently a hazardous sport according to Zepeda.

“I’m a safety freak,” he said, “because I know even experts make mistakes. It’s usually human error versus equipment failure. And with nature, you have to always remember you’re not completely in control, anything can happen even if you are careful.”

Zepeda said technical climbs are rated by their degree of difficulty, from 5.0 for the easiest all

the way up to 5.15a for the true expert.

“The good thing about Mount St. Helena is that is offers climbs from entry level to intermediate to advanced,” he said.

According to the website mountainproject.com, the most difficult climb on the mountain is beast of burden with a rating of 5.11c.

“I’ve seen people from their 20s to their late 70s rock climbing up there,” he said.

He also noted that you find an equal number of men and women climbers, because the sport does not favor one gender over another.

He explained that Mount St. Helena is considered sport climbing as opposed to Yosemite, which is called “trad” or traditional climbing. Trad climbing is more difficult and requires specialized equipment, according to Zepeda.

Before you decide to take on Mount St. Helena, Zepeda said you should be prepared to invest time and money. Indoor climbing gyms with controlled environments

are a good way to get a taste of the sport, like Rockzilla in Napa and Vertex Climbing Center in Santa Rosa, he suggested.

To get all the equipment you need to begin climbing outdoors, Zepeda said you could expect to spend upwards of $500.

“You’ll need a harness, dynamic rope, chalk and chalk bag, special shoes, carabiners, anchors and quick draws for starters. Your life is on the line,” he said, “so you want to make sure you get good stuff.”

Zepeda said that REI in Santa Rosa is the nearest store that would carry everything you need, as well as have people who could explain the equipment to novices, which you would not get if you bought online.

Because of the extreme heat in the Mount St. Helena area, Zepeda said spring and fall are the preferred climbing seasons. Access to the climbing areas is via Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, and climbers should expect to spend most of the day climbing, he said.

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Register file photo

Father Gordon Kalil of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, left, blesses the new home of Puertas Abiertas, as well as its program coordinator Frances Ortiz Chavez, during the community center’s grand opening in 2005.

A life of art and

ACTIVISM

Frances Ortiz-Chavez follows a serendipitous path to success in Napa M I C H A E L WAT E R S O N

“I took the road less traveled by,” said poet Robert Frost, “and that has made all the difference.” In the poem “The Road Not Taken,” Frost chose his own way forward; but early in life, roads are chosen for us.

For longtime Napa resident Frances would ultimately lead her to community Ortiz-Chavez, the first big life choice for activism and art. her was made when she was 10 years old.

“My first day of awakening in this new That was when her father, an American world was going to class for the first time,” citizen, moved his family from Sonora, Mexico to Tucson, Arizona. That choice Please see Activism, Page 12 Summer 2018 11

ACTIVISM From page 11

said Ortiz-Chavez in a recent interview. “My teacher could not speak Spanish and I could not speak a word of English.”

Because they were non-English speakers, Francisca (her name was Anglicized by the teacher) had been put in first grade rather than fourth or fifth grade, her age level.

On her first day, her teacher explained to the class there would be a fire drill. The non-English speaking girl didn’t get the message. When the alarm sounded, she grabbed her younger sister (who was in the same class) and ran out of the building instead of lining up with the other kids.

“We kept running until the fence stopped us,” she said. “And then having to see the teacher’s anger, that was an awakening for us.”

Unable to follow along, the young girl spent a lot of her class time doodling and sketching the first year or two.

“That’s where I feel I developed my love for drawing,” Ortiz-Chavez said. “Everyone who goes through something traumatic, it can affect them positively or negatively.” Art became a way to improve her self-esteem.

Sports – softball and volleyball – helped as well, she said. It took three years for Ortiz-Chavez to catch up to her grade level. But as Frost’s poem also says, “way leads on to way,” one road leads to another.

“In ‘65, my dad, who was in construction, said we are going to go to California for the summer and see what the harvest is about,” said Ortiz-Chavez.

She said they spent the summer in places like Marysville and Lodi picking peaches, oranges and tomatoes.

In 1973, at age 23, she came to Napa to visit her sister, who was married and living here, for what she thought would be a two-week vacation. While here she met the man who would become her husband. She is still here today, 45 years later.

12 Summer 2018

Artist Frances Ortiz-Chavez in her Napa studio.

The demarcation between the Hispanic and Anglo communities in Napa was much sharper than it had been in Tucson, she said.

“I felt like I was living in two different worlds.”

She went to work with her sister at the senior center in St. Helena, became a geriatric assistant and got a job at the Veterans Home in Yountville. While working at the Veterans Home, she had what she calls another “awakening” while on a break with fellow employees. She still recalls the moment vividly.

“This woman began cursing, saying she wished all those blankety-blank Mexicans would pack their bags and go back to Mexico,” said Ortiz-Chavez. “It was like getting slapped. I said I really don’t appreciate you speaking about me that way.” As OrtizChavez recalls it, the woman was astonished: “I wasn’t speaking about you,” she said. “You’re different.”

A self-described quiet, shy person, Ortiz-Chavez was shocked she had confronted the woman.

That offhanded outburst sent her down a path of advocacy for her fellow immigrants.

“Why did she say I’m different?” she asked herself. “It was because she knows me,” she said.

“She can see beyond the color.”

The solution, she concluded, was to meet people face to face.

She volunteered at Clinic Olé, which had recently opened in Rutherford. In the meantime, she changed careers and went to work for Napa Valley Unified School District, first as a bilingual instructional assistant, then as an office clerk and ultimately

J.L. Sousa, Register

J.L. Sousa, Register

Artist Frances Ortiz-Chavez near her backyard studio where she currently stores some of her paintings.

as administrative assistant to the principal of Shearer Elementary School. She worked for the district for 20 years.

“I always wanted to not have to work and be an artist,” she said. “My husband said: ‘When we pay for the house, you can quit your job and be the artist you want to be.”

When they paid off their mortgage in 2001, the opportunity presented itself.

“But then I got sucked into politics,” she said, laughing. “It was too soon (to be an artist).”

She enrolled in the Hope Leadership Institute, the statewide nonprofit committed to ensuring political and economic equality for Latinos and graduated in 2003.

In that year, after raising a son and a daughter and working for the school district for more

than two decades years, OrtizChavez felt confident enough to try for a trustee position with the NVUSD Board of Education.

She said Tala DeWynter, the first Latina to serve on the school board, encouraged her. DeWynter and Napa County Hispanic Network founder Hope Lugo were her role models.

In 2006, Father Gordon Kalil of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church persuaded her to run Puertas Abiertas (Open Doors) Community Resource Center, a nonprofit begun by the church to serve the Hispanic community with a wide range of services. She stepped down in 2013 when her first grandchild was born.

Finally, with the children grown, retired from her career and less active in the community she returned to her first love, art.

Her home and studio are hung with vineyard landscapes painted in oil and acrylics, but she wants to combine her advocacy with her art.

“I want to get into more of the things I consider my passion.

I really like doing the artwork of our farmworkers. Calling attention to our farmworkers is so important,” she said.

The current political atmosphere gives her a sense of déjà vu.

“Everything gets recycled,” she said, “and I think we’re going through what we went through in the ‘60s and ‘70s with the (anti-immigrant) mentality.”

Her artwork, the tool she adopted as a young girl to bolster her self-esteem, is finally getting recognition. She has been invited, along with fellow artists Jose Martinez and Israel Valencia, to exhibit at the Yountville Community Center this fall. The exhibition opens with a reception Aug. 23 and runs till after Dia De Los Muertos Nov. 2 As another poet, Pablo Neruda said, “All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.”

Frances Ortiz-Chavez feels she’s successfully unified her disparate worlds. “I’m not just a Latina, a woman or an artist, I’m all of the above,” she said.

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14 Summer 2018

Yogaand

Pilates Two approaches for building strength and relieving stress

D

ecrease stress.

Build strength and flexibility.

Heal lower back pain.

Yoga and Pilates studios are filled with people reaching for these common goals. And when people find the right practice that works for them, goals that seemed out of reach can become reality.

But with an abundance of classes promising similar results, where does a person begin?

YOGA Yoga was created in India more than 5,000 years ago for the purpose of aligning the mind, body and spirit. When done correctly, it promotes relaxation while increasing flexibility and strength.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are, and it doesn’t matter your past experiences, yoga is available and accessible to all,” said Lisa Ackerman, a yoga teacher and the studio manager for Yoga Passion in Browns Valley. “It’s all about finding the right fit, the right studio, and the right teacher for you.”

While there are multiple types of yoga to choose from, yoga generally involves a series of stretches and poses incorporated with breathing exercises to produce a calming effect.

Yoga Passion, located on Browns Valley Road, is one

ISABELLE SCHMALTZ of several Napa Valley studios offering a wide variety of classes.

One of Yoga Passion’s most popular offerings is its “Community Classes,” which are open to all skill levels and cost $9 per session.

Each class has a specific focus such as meditation or gentle yoga.

“We have a lot of beginners at this studio, and I love to make believers out of them,” Ackerman said.

Kundalini yoga, which promotes deep relaxation, begins and ends with a mantra and includes breathwork, movement and a longer, 11-minute meditation, Ackerman said. Yoga Passion also offers heated yoga, but Ackerman said the class is “very different from a ‘hot yoga’ class,” which is a more vigorous form of yoga performed in a room heated to 105 degrees.

“We heat the room to about 85 degrees, and for me, this is the only way to practice,” Ackerman said. “I run cold so the warm room helps my body release muscular tension, which helps me move more fluidly.”

Recently, Yoga Passion added Prenatal Yoga to its regular schedule. Ackerman said pregnant women have been underserved in the Napa Valley yoga community.

At Napa Valley Yoga and Wellness, located on Jordan Lane, owner and yoga director Kory

Sheffer said Hatha, Yin, and Slow Vinyasa yoga classes are what she recommends for beginners. These classes move at a slower pace and offer more instruction, she said.

Flexibility is not a requirement for yoga—although this is a common misconception.

“This is a curse that modern yoga in the West has brought to this ancient healing practice,” Sheffer said. “The misconception that you have to fit into a certain body type or baseline physical performance to practice yoga is simply not true.”

This false belief is so widespread that both Sheffer and Ackerman said it is the number one reason people are discouraged from trying yoga. But both instructors said their studios are accessible to people of all body types and skill levels.

“You do not have to be able to touch your toes, do a handstand, or be bendy to practice yoga,” Sheffer said. “What is required is to show up to your mat with an open mind and a willingness to look inside yourself.”

“The veil lifted” After nearly 16 years in the wine business, Sheffer said she had developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and indulgence. Overweight, depressed, and riddled with anxiety, she felt her life spiraling out of control.

With the encouragement of her husband, Sheffer tried yoga to reduce stress. Now, at 38 years old, Sheffer said she feels happier and healthier than ever.

“After about nine months of serious practice, it was like the veil lifted and I saw the world as I hadn’t seen it since childhood,” Sheffer said. “I stopped drinking, left my career in the wine business, and completely reinvented myself.”

Today, she and her husband co-own two Napa yoga studios: Ashtanga Yoga Napa Valley and Napa Valley Yoga and Wellness.

Ashtanga Yoga Napa Valley opened in December 2017.

Ashtanga is “unique,” Sheffer said, because it is taught in a “very traditional form where the teacher and student cultivate a close working relationship.” While students practice in a group setting, the teacher provides personalized instruction for every student, each moving at their own pace based on what’s appropriate for their body and mind.

Napa Valley Yoga and Wellness opened in May of 2015 and offers more than 30 classes per week of different styles of yoga. Sheffer describes the studio as a “sanctuary for the entire community.”

“We’ve created not only a Please see Yoga, Page 16

Summer 2018 15

YOGA

endure for the rest of their lives,” Ellingson said.

From Page 15

YOGA VS. PILATES Still feeling overwhelmed by all the options? Before deciding between yoga and Pilates, a person should first identify the main goal, experts said.

While both forms of exercise offer similar results, the main difference is this: Yoga is centered on the mind. Pilates’ focus is core strength.

Unlike Pilates, meditation plays an important role in yoga.

Studies suggest that mindful meditation—sitting comfortably, focusing on breathing and staying in the present—can be beneficial for mental health, particularly easing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

“I see yoga as way to spend quality time with yourself,” Ackerman said. “It’s a practice, and a discipline, but also a gift that you give to yourself.”

People are commonly drawn to yoga because they have a desire to change, Sheffer said.

“If practiced with devotion and sincerity over a long period of time, yoga is a practice that will provide a student with whatever he or she is seeking,” Sheffer said.

Pilates exercises involve more movement and can be more intense in comparison to yoga.

If the goal is to achieve stronger core muscles, Pilates may produce quicker results. In yoga, strength and flexibility are considered a “side effect,” but they are not the primary goal.

“As an ex-dancer I became familiar with Pilates because as it plays an important role in conditioning for dancing and injury recovery,” Ellingson said. “When I stopped dancing is when I realized that many parts of my body were suffering and Pilates pretty much saved me.”

Not to create confusion, but yoga and Pilates can actually complement each other. According to Flanders, the core strength gained in Pilates can help enhance one’s yoga practice.

“People who do both are very fortunate.”

beautiful and welcoming practice space, but also a wonderful community space for students to sit before or after practice and share a tea or kombucha with friends,” Sheffer said.

The studio also hosts several workshops and clinics led by local doctors, holistic practitioners and nutritionists to help people improve their overall health.

“We are definitely more than Jen Philips, courtesy Ashtanga Yoga Napa Valley and Napa Valley Yoga and Wellness just a place to come take a Yoga class,” Sheffer said. “We are a yoga and wellness center.” of Pilates, they are addicted.” stuff,” she recalled thinking.

Most Pilates studios are Today, Flanders is the owner PILATES equipped with special Pilates of Downtown Pilates on Pearl Pilates was created as a physical machines, which are used in Street in downtown Napa. She rehabilitation exercise in 1920 by addition to exercises performed teaches private sessions as well the German-born Joseph Pilates. on a mat. One of the most com- as small group classes, including With correct practice, Pilates mon machines used is called the a four-session introductory series increases balance, core muscle Reformer. for beginners. strength, and body awareness “The beauty of Reformers is Through Pilates, Flanders through a series of movements that they allow you to perform said she developed strong core and breathing techniques, that are exercises lying down, promoting muscles, which helped reduce typically performed in a specific length, flexibility and balance,” the compression on her spine. order.

Ellingson said.

She’s returned to ballet, as well as These simple-looking moveINSPIRé Pilates also offers riding horseback—activities that ments, with names like the “Ele- CoreAlign equipment, which was seemed impossible around 15 phant” and the “Swan,” take more designed by a physical therapist years ago. precision and control than many to improve posture, balance and While Pilates is not an aeropeople realize. functional movement, Ellingson bic workout, the exercise focuses “If you don’t do it correctly, said. on “really delicate, fine muscles,” you can hurt yourself or get noth“CoreAlign exercises are done Flanders said. Pilates won’t typiing out of it,” said Sandy Flan- in a standing position, which is a cally produce a sweat, but people ders, owner of Downtown Pilates huge help in identifying and cor- do feel the results in their stomin Napa. “The form is the magic.” recting posture when walking,” ach, pelvic muscles and back, she While Pilates won’t work up a Ellingson said. said. sweat, it will strengthen muscles Flanders describes Pilates as a Some people believe that if in the abdomen, back and pelvis “user’s manual for the body.” they’re not sweating, they’re not leading to better physical abilities “Core is the center of it all,” exercising, Flanders said. But this overall—whether swinging a golf Flanders said, adding that with is one of the common misconcepclub or reaching for something on stronger core muscles “you will tions of Pilates. a high shelf. be able to do what you love for “Sign up for a private session,” Amy Ellingson, owner of much, much longer.”

Flanders said. “I can convince INSPIRé Pilates Studio in St. Regaining strength them it’s a workout.”

Helena, said most of her clients Flanders gave up ballet and Both Flanders and Ellingson try Pilates because they are search- her love of horseback riding after said they are seeing more men ing for an alternative to more tra- developing a degenerative disc. signing up for Pilates, a practice ditional workout routines.

The compression on her spine that has typically been dominated “Beyond general fitness, caused severe back pain—not to by women. Some men join at the Pilates provides a comprehensive mention, poor posture. request of their spouses, while program supporting injury recovHearing that Pilates was good others are looking to relieve lower ery, pain-free movement, postural for the back, Flanders took up the back and hip pain. alignment, and rehabilitation,” practice and was soon inspired to “They are surprised to find Ellingson said. “The truth is that become a certified instructor. that lower back pain is curable once people begin to see the result “People should know this and not something they have to 16 Summer 2018

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NEIGHBORHOODS

Kirk Candland at his Alta Heights home where he has lived for seven years. Born and raised in Napa, he now lives across the street from the house he was born in.

J.L. Sousa, Register

Napa’s

“Little Italy” From rural enclave to hip community, Alta Heights has come a long way K I R K K I R K PAT R I C K To Napa old-timers, the name “Alta Heights” conjures up all kinds of memories, whether you grew up there or not. Everyone has a favorite experience to reflect on, whether it be a game of pick-up baseball at the school, throwing the football in the street, walking up to the now non-existent reservoir, flying down Montecito Boulevard on bikes, Halloween egg fights or parking with their “steady” on a dirt road lovers’ lanes high in the hills overlooking the twinkling 18 Summer 2018

lights of the city.

From almost any part of town, then and now, Alta Heights can easily be spotted looming directly above the eastern edge of downtown, and bounded by Silverado Trail to the west, Clark Street on the north, the high, rock-strewn ridge on the top of the hill to the east and Coombsville Road to the south.

History doesn’t record who coined the name Alta Heights, but it’s an oddly redundant name in that alta means “high” in

Spanish.

The entire area was incorporated into the city of Napa in 1875, but remained largely undeveloped until the early 1900s.

Then it was developed for residential use, beginning with the land just east of Silverado Trail and west of East Avenue. Many Italian families moved here after the Great Quake of 1906 and the area became known as Little Italy.

By the 1930s and 1940s, the staunchly middle-class residential neighborhoods had expanded

eastward up the hill from East Avenue, which was a dirt road.

Prior to that time, the city dump was located in a small valley near what is today known as Julian Street. As expansion approached the dumpsite, it was closed and covered over in the late 1940s.

One wonders if people who’ve paid nearly $1 million or more recently for houses in that area know what is directly under their feet.

By the 1950s, houses began popping up on the ridge at the

top of Alta Heights where they can still be seen today.

This was before there was any cachet to living in the Napa Valley, and the need of the day was affordable homes for the hundreds of workers at nearby Mare Island, Basalt Rock Company and Kaiser Steel. To accommodate the children of the new residents, Alta Heights Elementary School was built and opened in 1949.

Also opened in 1949 was the Alta Heights Reservoir, christened on April 3 in a ceremony attended by mayors past and present, as well as other local dignitaries including Miss Napa County.

But don’t look for that reservoir today; it was replaced by a 5-million-gallon underground cement tank in 2000 and all that remains visible is a stagnant pond in what is now known as Lakeview Park.

J.L. Sousa, Register

Kirk Candland in his Alta Heights home where he has lived for seven years. Born and raised in Napa, he now lives across the street from the house he was born in.

Joy Eldredge, water general manager for the City of Napa, said it was a water quality issue that doomed the Alta Heights Reservoir. But treated water is still pumped into the storage tank from various sites around Napa, and that water is sent to the Napa downtown area via a pipe system that’s easily visible behind Alta Heights Elementary School, she said.

The best descriptions of Alta Heights are from the people who grew up there and still live there today.

Kirk Candland, who was general manager at the Silverado Resort for some 30 years, recalls reading once in the San Francisco Chronicle that: “Alta Heights is the Berkeley of the Napa Valley.”

“It’s very quirky in Alta Heights,” he said. “The neighborhoods are just so unique. The people who live there now are a younger group. I was raised in Alta Heights, and when I was born in 1950, my father was building the house I grew up in on Montecito, across from the Mormon Church.

J.L. Sousa, Register

Kirk Candland at his Alta Heights home where he has lived for seven years. Born and raised in Napa, he now lives across the street from the house he was born in.

“Back then, there weren’t homes around there, it was very rural,” he remembered. My dad bought a piece of land from the Mormon church, as did a couple of other neighbors up there, that’s when the Montecito development started. When you got a couple hundred yards past the church on Montecito, it was just a dirt road.

Back behind us on Julian was a dirt road that that wasn’t paved until the early ‘60s. One of the early houses on Montecito that I own today was where the Napa Valley Horseman’s Association used to be, up by the reservoir.

We have a well on that property the NVHA had put in for their horses.”

There was a lot more freedom for youngsters in those days, Candland said.

“Alta Heights was a wonderful place to grow up because we were more or less in the country and you could go out and shoot your BB gun and all that kind of stuff.

We also enjoyed walking down the hill to a Chinese market on Silverado Trail or through the cemetery to the market over on Coombsville Road. If we were riding our bikes, we could really get up some speed coming down the hill.”

Like many young boys, Candland had a Napa Register newspaper route.

“Route 100, I remember it well,” he said. “There was a trailer park near where the condos are now, and there were some sketchy people in there. I got stung so many times because I would deliver papers to people for the first three weeks of the month, and when I could go back to collect in the fourth week, their trailer would be gone.”

“That old barn on East Avenue has been there as long as I can remember. I delivered papers to the people across the street and got bit by their big collie once. I saw the owner of that house years later at Silverado and reminded him of that,” he laughed.

“It was a working-class area then and the parents of a lot of people who lived up there worked at Mare Island, Basalt or Kaiser Steel. My dad was a Summer 2018 19

pharmaceutical representative for Ely Lilly for 35 years and then worked as a pharmacist at the Queen of the Valley. We eventually sold our family home across from the church to a prominent local attorney after my dad moved into a retirement community.”

Many Napa folk will recall the lower parts of Alta Heights were known as Little Italy. “Back in those days, there was an amazing number of Italians in this area.

Alta Heights was filled with them.

Joe Vallerga’s big farm was right across Silverado Trail,” Candland said.

But, he recalled, a lot of prominent Napans lived in Alta Heights back in the ‘50s and ‘60 because the upper parts were kind of the newer area before Monticello Park got going.”

“It was rural up on the ridge, you had some great vistas up there, particularly at night. We used to hike up to the cup and saucer (a prominent rock formation) before there were houses there for the view, which was a full day’s hike,” he recalled. “We would also hang out by the reservoir, which was fenced off with barbed wire so you couldn’t swim, but I absolutely saw some rattlesnakes around there. We still get deer that come down through the school; a lot of skunks, there’s even been talk of some bobcats.

You go up to Meek Avenue and around there and it’s not surprising to see a Bobcats even today.”

Candland, like most kids who grew up in Alta Heights after 1950, went to the newly opened Alta Heights Elementary School.

“I just walked down the hill then,” he said. “But now, even for kids as old as fifth or sixth grade who live close by, their parents have to walk them to school. We used to walk and ride our bikes everywhere and no one worried.

Some of my better friends in the area were Warren Wilkens, John Vallerga and Jim Lyons, to name a few. There were so few people around us, we would go out on Montecito and throw the football around. You can’t do that now.”

“I was raised in the Mormon Church on Montecito, and we are still very active in the church.

20 Summer 2018

J.L. Sousa, Register

Christine Pighini Chapdelaine in front of her Alta Heights home.

I remember Halloween in Alta Heights. Classic,” he said. “People would go up on the lawn of the church with eggs and wait for cars of teenagers to come up Montecito. People would run to hide in our carport sometimes when they were being chased. That was the hot spot in Napa on Halloween.”

When Candland was finished with elementary school, he went to the newly constructed Silverado Junior High on Coombsville Road.

“In those days, we used to go down to Catania’s Pizza on Silverado and play the pinball machines,” he said.

He said he and his wife had moved back to the Alta Heights area, into a rental they had owned, not so much for nostalgic reasons, but because it is a great neighborhood. “ We came back to Alta Heights because of the proximity to downtown. You can sit on your porch and listen to BottleRock and it’s actually clearer than if you were sitting in front of the stage.”

“The young people are gravitating to Alta Heights because of that. You can go downtown without having to get into your car. People just want to be able to walk to a restaurant,” he said.

“The diversity of the architecture and the nature of people who make up the residents now also make Alta Heights a great place.”

Candland hears some of the old-timers talk about how they wish things had not changed in the area, but he remembers when

it was not so sublime.

“This was a challenging area back way back when, and it wasn’t very nice. Tacky is too nice a word for it. A lot of buildings around here were dumps, and now they’ve been upgraded. We had businesses like auto dismantlers and trailer parks.”

And, of course, as is the case in other parts of Napa, a lot of the homes in Alta Heights are not occupied by the owners.

“There are an amazing number of VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) and Air B&Bs around us. I saw the calendar of one of these houses recently and it was rented 250 days last year at $300 a night.”

Christine (Pighini) Chapdelaine is a year older than Candland and grew up just a block away (if you were using one of the many dirt trails to cut through) on Julian Street. Chapdelaine’s family came to Napa at the turn of the 20th century from Italy by way of New York City.

“My Italian grandmother came to Napa in 1903 with her mother when she was 7 years and they settled on Spring Street,” she said.

“Her husband had come three years earlier, because there wasn’t enough money for the whole family to come together. I’m just amazed at the commitment that these couples had towards one another.”

Like many immigrants, Chapdelaine’s great grandfather came through Ellis Island in New York Harbor.

“My great grandfather didn’t have enough money to go beyond Ellis Island so the plan was for him to work. The family lore says that he had a very long beard and a very wealthy lady saw him walking down the streets of New York and decided it was the perfect match for her hair,” she said.

“He sold his beard to her for five dollars and he was able to come to San Francisco by train and then up to Napa.”

Chapdelaine said when her grandmother and other siblings arrived, she didn’t recognize him because when he left she was about three or four years old and had never known him without a beard.

“They lived in Alta Heights at 85 Spring Street where my grandmother and her husband later married and lived. My dad was born in that house in 1918,” Chapdelaine said.

“My grandmother said that they would walk to church to the old St John’s that is no longer there, and when they would walk home the old Italians would be on their porches playing their accordions. She said it was really, really cool and she loved it,” Chapdelaine said. This experience was corroborated by Napa author and retired Judge Ramond Guadagni in his recent book, “The Adventures of the Squeezebox Kid.” Chapdelaine said her family and the other Italians in the area loved the Alta Heights neighborhood because it reminded them of northern Italy with the oak trees and the brown rolling hills.

So why Napa? It’s a long way from Italy, particularly when you are coming by ship and train.

“They came here because back then Napa was known for dairy, and the Italians were very good at milking and taking care of cows,” Chapdelaine said. “When my grandmother came over from Italy as a little girl, all kinds of extended family came along including her grandfather.”

“My grandfather did various jobs, including milking and working for the Italian French bakery that was behind where Brewster’s Please see Italy, Page 74

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Sharing Napa Valley through

photography TIM CARL

Bob McClenahan turns childhood passion into unexpected career

Y

ou can hear about and taste the delicious wines made from grapes grown in the Napa Valley, but until you actually see the stunning beauty of this special place you can’t fully appreciate its true impact.

And although many photographers have helped define the look and feel of Napa as wine country — Olaf Beckman, Robb McDonough, Emma K. Morris and JL Sousa, to name a few — for the last few years, arguably the most ubiquitous and regionally defining photos have come from Bob McClenahan, whose prolific and high-quality photographs can be seen gracing hundreds of websites, magazines (including Inside Napa Valley) and brochures.

“Bob McClenahan is a terrific photographer, and his work is a true reflection of the spirit of Napa Valley: the wine, the scenic beauty and the sense of community,” said former Napa Valley Vintners Communications Director Patsy McGaughy. “He is the artist/photographer behind some of our valley’s best-known and most-often-used images, like the Napa Valley sign, the Grape Crusher and many other iconic, sweeping scenic shots of our beautiful region.”

Given McClenahan’s presence, it is hard to believe that he’s been taking photographs professionally

Tim Carl Photographer

Bob McClenahan

in the valley only for the last five years.

“I would never have imagined that it would come to this,” McClenahan said. “I never went to school for this and was doing something totally different. I don’t want to say I fell into it because it was a decision I made, but it was only out of necessity that I decided to try and become a professional photographer.”

During the Great Recession, McClenahan had been laid off

from his job as a financial compliance officer at a Bay Area company. But even before then he’d moved from job to job, seemingly thwarted at every stop by companies selling, going out of business or laying off workers.

“I was getting tired of moving around, and I had started taking photos again and really loved it,” he said.

Growing into photos Growing up in Merced and Sacramento, McClenahan had

learned early how to take film photographs with his father, Jim. “Our family comes from a long line of amateur photographers,” said Jim McClenahan, a longtime newspaper publisher and a former account executive for the Napa Valley Register.

“My grandfather was shooting 16-millimeter color movies back in the 1930s, and my father, Bob’s grandfather, shot movies and still Please see Photgraphy, Page 24

Summer 2018 23

PHOTOGRAPHY From Page 23

photos all his life, giving us a great family record … Bob probably has photography in his genes.”

Chasing trains “My dad was really into trains when I was a kid and so we’d travel around and he showed me camera and composition basics while we took photos of trains and railroad equipment,” Bob said. “We started out with some pretty simple equipment, but when I was in high school he bought a more advanced 35-millimeter camera that we shared.”

According to his father, by the time McClenahan entered high school, his son was already showing a natural talent as a photographer.

“When Bob was in high school, I bought us both a Canon A1 SLR system with several lenses, flash and a tripod to shoot better-quality photos,” Jim said. “I shot slides, Bob shot prints. It was at about this time that Bob started shooting better photos than me. He developed a keen sense of balance and composition and an ability to capture emotions in his subjects. With the advent of digital photography, Bob continued to improve his craft.”

But after high school, years passed before McClenahan considered picking up a camera again.

“I went to college the first time and got a degree in business, but then I went back to get another degree in communications, which was much more fun,” McClenahan said. “That’s when I took my camera back out of the bag and started taking photos again.”

During the same time, McClenahan also was the morning DJ at the KSSU radio station (California State University, Sacramento), where he played “fast, upbeat punk music” and interviewed students and bands. One morning, the station received a fax from MTV calling for interns. He applied and was hired.

“This was at the beginning of the Internet (1995), and my job was to cover the Northern California’s music scene,” he said. “My job was to write about the bands, but I needed more content so I started including photos that they then started to include in the pieces, too.”

McClenahan’s work was finding an audience — MTV liked his reviews and photos enough to offer him a paid position that lasted for a couple of years. After that he went back to a local radio station (KRXQ—98 Rock Sacramento) where he helped produce shows and even local bands. But like many of that time (1998), the lure of the Internet and making a living as an investor was strong, 24 Summer 2018

Submitted photo

Bob McClenahan

A photo of musician Snoop Dogg taken by Napa Valley photographer Bob McClenahan, at the recent BottleRock.

so he put down his camera and microphone, intent on becoming a stockbroker.

“One of my friend’s mothers was a broker, and she’d tell us that she basically worked a couple hours a day and was making a ton of money, and so I thought, ‘Hey, that’s what I should be doing,’” he said. “So that’s what I did. I went to Morgan Stanley, and the day I started was when the market crashed (March 2000). It was rough going.”

Making it work More than a decade passed, and by 2013 McClenahan had found himself working for a variety of companies.

“I’d become tired of all the jumping around and started taking some photos again — just on the side,” he said. “The vintners (Napa Valley Vintners) were really my first client, and after I got laid off from my last job I asked my wife if she’d be willing to put up with me trying to make it as a professional photographer. Luckily she agreed.”

Within a short time, he could be seen quietly taking photos at nearly every event

around the valley, often working seven days a week, from early in the morning to late in the evening, sending his clients photos often within 24 hours of taking them.

“Bob possesses some of the ideal traits of a great photographer,” McGaughy said. “He’s got an eye for shooting terrific photos, he keeps quietly to the background so he can be in the middle of the action without being a distraction and he always tries to make himself available, even on short notice.”

“I’ve been fortunate,” McClenahan said.

“In the end, I think of myself as a business person more than an artist. It’s also been nice to focus here in this beautiful valley and to have clients who value my work and are fun to work with.”

A community of support “We make it a priority to work with local professionals and vendors whenever we can,” McGaughy said. “Locals often share our core beliefs and values about what makes Napa Valley unique and special. Working with locals also supports our longtime philosophy that those of us who live and work here should source from here – whether for wine, culinary ingredients or great talent.”

McClenahan has had many roles in his life. He now finds himself one of the premier and most highly sought-after photographers in one of the world’s most-frequented tourist destinations — the Napa Valley. But he is also a father of two boys, and a husband for 14 years, who, along with other family members continue to encourage and support a passion that has become a career.

“I’m proud of my son as a loving husband and father,” Jim said. “The fact that he’s an outstanding photographer is just frosting on the cake.”

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GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Napa County Sheriff John Robertson Favorite day off? I stick pretty close to my cellphone all day-every day, so every day I don’t get a call is my favorite day!

Favorite cop TV show? I grew up watching “The FBI” on Sunday nights with my Dad. That is a great memory!

Least favorite cop TV show? I actually don’t watch any “Cop” shows. Honestly, they are pretty bad.

What do TV and movies get most wrong about police work?

That most crimes can be solved in 48 minutes.

Best vacation of all time? Several years ago we took our family to the Bahamas — Amazing!

What did you want to be when you grew up? I still want to be an Indy Car driver when I grow up!

Plain clothes or uniform? I spent a lot of years in a uniform, but I am definitely plainclothes these days and sitting in a lot of meetings!

Most interesting case you’ve investigated? Is it strange to say that I am very interested in every case I have investigated; from bicycle thefts to homicides. I enjoy a good suspect interview.

Favorite sport to watch? I have been enjoying the last few years watching the Warriors.

Favorite sport to play? I really enjoy road cycling.

What do you eat for a special occasion? Anything from the ocean.

Any superstitions? It is not a superstition, but I definitely believe in Karma.

Favorite thing about Napa County? Without a doubt, it is our sense of community. I have been fortunate enough to witness people coming together to deal with fires, floods, earthquakes and some horrific crimes. The people that work and live in this community are absolutely incredible during difficult times! The amount of support this community offers to one another is amazing. It is an honor to live and work in Napa County. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

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Summer 2018 27

Fighting the

FIRESTORMS Napa’s female firefighters on the front lines in October blazes K I R K K I R K PAT R I C K Editor’s note: Last edition, we profiled some of Napa County’s female firefighters, who have persevered in a traditionally male-dominated profession. This edition, we collect their memories of being on the front lines of last fall’s devastating firestorms.

Every able firefighter in the Napa County area was called to duty on that unforgettable October night last fall when windblown fires created a living hell the likes of which no one had ever seen.

Napa County volunteer firefighter Arriana Kampton wasn’t even through her first year of firefighting when the night light up the night of Oct. 8 around her station on Soda Canyon Road.

“The October firestorm was the first time I actually saw a fire,” she recalled. “I had just sat down to dinner when I got a call on my pager asking if I had heard about the fires; I looked out the window and it was like the whole valley was on fire.”

Kampton was quick to jump in her car and run down to Cal Fire Station 25 on Monticello Road where she expected to find her company’s engine, but someone had taken it already.

“Eventually me and some others from our station got on a different engine, #214, which is the Capell Valley Engine. We were soon working Loma Vista Drive, which was nice because that’s off Soda Canyon Road in our coverage area and we know it really well.”

When they were about halfway down Loma Vista, they 28 Summer 2018

Submitted photo

Firefighters Drew Lehmann, in the foreground, Arriana Kampton, holding the nozzle, battle a river of flame during last fall’s firestorms.

began assisting with defending a structure but the wind was strong enough to almost knock them over, Kampton recalled.

“We felt like we had to get out of there quickly as the fires are hitting us from both sides,” she said.

Their escape route had turned into a terrifying wall of flames, “We start driving out and it was like looking at a TV screen where the flames were filling the windshield and we couldn’t see anything. But our driver, Chief Sandy Storck, kept her cool and

got us out of there. We saw later a bunch of parts on the outside of our engine had melted and it was getting pretty hot inside, too. It was insane,” she said.

Kampton said she felt helpless at some points because fire is a force of nature that sometimes

cannot be stopped. “The fires were so hot, the water was basically evaporating the minute it came out of my hose,” she said.

Does she still think about those fires?

“Every time the winds come up,” Kampton said.

City of Napa fire captain Sharon Quick was off duty the night the conflagrations broke out, and was enjoying a nice evening outdoors with her children, when her daughter noticed another bright red object besides the reddish moon.

“The moon was so beautiful that night, a bright red,” said Quick. “I called the kids out to see it. We were all looking at the moon and my daughter looked over at Atlas Peak and asked me ‘Mommy, what’s going on over there?’ I said, ‘Oh honey, Atlas Peak is on fire!” And the winds were howling, and her first words were, ‘Please don’t go back to work,’ and I said ‘Honey, I’ve got to go. I’ll just go in for a few hours and help get it under control and then I will come home in time to get you to school in the morning.’ Later, she had a volleyball game in Santa Rosa.

“It was all hands on deck, off duty or not.

We were on an engine heading out to the Vichy area and Montecito Heights, when Partrick Road blew up. We were then redirected to that area and Old Sonoma Road, and then we were sent back to Vichy. I called my daughter when the sun was coming up, and she said ‘I know, you’re not coming home,’ and I said, ‘I will be gone for a few days, but don’t worry, there’s no volleyball game because St. Rose School (Santa Rosa) burned down!’”

Little did Quick realize it would be five days before she would return to her family.

“I was on the fire for five days straight,” she said. “I had been in two firestorms in my career, where a neighborhood or a small portion of a neighborhood was wiped out. But that night, I heard about all the fires breaking out and I thought ‘this is just unreal.’

“Even though we succeeded in keeping the fire from breaking out in the city limits of Napa, it was heart-wrenching. People still don’t realize there were spot fires all over the city that night from falling embers that we had to put out.”

“We were overwhelmed in the beginning and couldn’t do a lot to stop all the fires.

There were a lot of great saves that you didn’t hear about, but we couldn’t save everything.

Even though we were doing good things, we left those fires feeling miserable and a lot of our firefighters had PTSD afterwards,” she said.

Cal Fire Captain Stephine Cardwell was also off duty the night the fires broke out, enjoying a little nap on the couch. It was the last rest she would get for several days.

“I got a call from a friend of mine who

Submitted photo

Firefighters Drew Lehmann, in the foreground, Arriana Kampton, holding the nozzle, on the front line during last fall’s firestorms.

Submitted photo

Napa County volunteer firefighter Arriana Kampton.

lives on Atlas Peak who wanted to know what was going on with the fire,” she said. “I was like ‘what fire?’ Then I could smell it, and I thought ‘uh oh.’

“I turned on my walkie and it sounded like Armageddon. The Tubbs Fire had just broken out near Calistoga where my boyfriend lives, so I grabbed my dog and left to drive up there and see what was going on. On the way up on Silverado Trail, I heard about a new start just up the road, so I pulled up to the house and luckily ran into some county workers I knew. We woke up the resident and used his garden house and some hand tools and put out the fire.”

Cardwell said this particular fire didn’t fit the usual pattern.

“We had no idea what started this fire, there was nothing obvious, and it was not near the other fires and regardless, the wind was not blowing in our direction. It was very suspicious.”

But Cardwell would not be staying in the Calistoga area for long that night.

“After I checked on my boyfriend, I heard on the radio they were trying to evacuate 11 elderly residents from Haire Lane on Highway 121 in the Carneros area. But there was no one available to help.”

Fast thinking and fast action by Cardwell probably saved those people’s lives.

“I couldn’t just leave these people with no one to help get them out and I knew I could get there in 45 minutes if I drove fast,” she said. “I got there just in time because the fire was crossing 121 right by there when I arrived. I figured out where the people were, and it was a good thing because then a battalion chief I knew pulled up with five engines on the way, and I was able to point them in the right direction. Fortunately, we were able to evacuate everyone safely.”

But with all hands on deck and the fires spreading fast, Cardwell’s duties were just beginning. After she went home and helped get her family situated, she drove to the Cal Fire headquarters in St. Helena to see what she could do.

“They said they need me to go to a helicopter base near Angwin,” she said. “I had experience on a helicopter as a firefighter. I reported to our helibase in Angwin and started coordinating all the aircraft coming in. Two days later, they pulled me from the helibase to go set up another helibase in Healdsburg.

And for the next three weeks, I would call that home as the helibase manager there.”

“There were many times we had to ground the aircraft because the smoke was too thick to see. We were doing bucket work and occasionally evacuating firefighters. It’s dangerous work no matter what. Plus it’s dangerous for the ground crews, too. If we get hit with 500 pounds of water it’s going to hurt. Helicopters Please see Firefighters, Page 30

Summer 2018 29

FIREFIGHTERS From Page 29

and big tankers can also change what the fire is doing, good and bad. When it comes down to it, it’s still about the ground crews to get fires out.”

City of Napa firefighter Hattie Borg said the fires in October were her first real exposure to firefighting.

“I was off duty at the time, but we were recalled. So I came in immediately,” she said.

“I could see the glow on Atlas Peak as I pulled up to the station so I knew this was a big deal. I was put on an engine to cover the city while the others went to the fire, but I ended up going to Atlas Peak and was out there for three days straight. You sleep wherever you can. We just slept on someone’s lawn with our coats over us.

“This was a shock to me to see so much fire. You can’t put out everything, so you make a stance where from this point on, I’m not going to let anything burn. We were putting out spot fires to protect the neighborhoods that had not yet burned, using the water that was already in our truck.”

“The next day, we were assigned to structure fires so we said from this point on we’re not going to let anything burn. We were attached to a hydrant, but not all hydrants work for one reason or another. It was a oncein-a-lifetime deal.”

“Even though people did the right things with defensible space, the fire still got them because of the 40-mile-an -hour winds. I thought, ‘This can’t be normal.’ It was horrible to see, we were all kind of in shock.

The first things that comes to mind is all the homes that were lost, and the families were displaced. But we were proud of what we did save because without it the fire would have definitely torn through more neighborhoods.

I was out there for three days but others were out there for weeks.”

Cal Fire Chief Gabby Avila had gone to bed early the night the fires broke out because told her with the wind gusts so strong Cal Fire was going to be busy.

“Six major fires in one unit in a 5-hour span is not something we ever prepared for,” she said. “I got a phone call about seven minutes after the Atlas fire started, asking me to come into the command center in St. Helena and take over duty coverage. I became the unit duty chief who is in charge of mobilizing resources.”

“One major fire can be very taxing on a unit’s employees, and in a matter of hours we had six,” Avila said. “It was a busy couple of weeks, I worked as the unit duty chief for 30 Summer 2018

Submitted photo

Chief Gabrielle Avila, second from right, on an otherwise all-male crew early in her career.

Submitted photo

Cal Fire Capt. Sandy Storck, left, with firefighters Arriana Kempton, center, and Drew Lehmann, right, during a break in the action in last fall’s firestorms.

about six days and then I ended up moving to a line officer position on the Atlas incident.

The line officer represents the unit with the incident management team. I have to say it was really amazing. Everybody came in and went to work and the community was so supportive. Communication was a challenge, we didn’t have cellphone communication with a lot of our resources, and it was unbelievable, like nothing we had ever imagined.”

“In 2015, I was the duty chief on the Valley Fire,” Avila said, “and I honestly thought I would never see a fire like that again. That night of the Napa fires we did everything we could with the resources we could gather, our emphasis was saving lives and evacuation ahead of the fire and doing entrapment rescues.”

“My biggest fear all night was what are we

going to see when the sun comes up. We had a fire burn from Calistoga to Santa Rosa in a couple of hours and we were scared to death about civilian and fire service fatalities. I still look back and think how amazing it was all the first responders made it through without more serious injuries or fatalities.”

“It was a crazy night, this firestorm was so dynamic that if we had all the resources in California here at the time, the fires would still have burned the areas it did. Conditions were just too extreme. There were also other fires around the state to worry about, so we were not getting all the resources we would have liked to have had. We eventually had resources from out of state,” she said.

Cal Fire firefighter Emily Agnew was with a crew up in Lake County putting out fires and hot spots connected with a different fire when the Napa fires broke out.

“We then got a call to go to the Tubbs Fire, and from there we were sent to check on a report of another fire start near the St. Helena Hospital, which turned out to be a false alarm. After that, we were sent to the Atlas Fire to help with evacuating residents, and then I spent the next five days on the Partrick’s Fire,” Agnew said.

City of Napa Capt. Laurel Chamness was home in Sonoma County in an area where the Tubbs fires would later come roaring through.

“I was home with my son because my husband, who’s a retired firefighter, was in Las Vegas with our daughter,” she said. “Someone was killed right in front of her at the concert mass shooting and he was helping her through that. Our house was in an evacuation zone and was threatened on three sides but survived. When my husband returned, I went back to work but we spent most of our time keeping our neighborhood safe.”

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Tireless

searchers Cadaver dogs join the fire fight in California RACHEL ROSE The fires moved fast and burned hot. In the end, all that was left of many houses were piles of ash and twisted metal pipes.

Even porcelain sinks and toilets were incinerated in the flames.

The devastation was swift, and it was total. But thanks to a courageous and concerted response by firefighters and law enforcement, almost everyone in the path of the blaze made it out alive. Almost.

Mid-October 2017 was the deadliest week of fires in California’s history. Fire officials estimate the 245,000-acre blaze left at least 44 California residents dead, from Napa and Sonoma counties. Many others could not be located in the chaos following evacuation.

Over the next few days, their family members gathered and waited, anxious for information, hoping for a miracle. They desperately needed to know what had happened to their loved ones.

California residents Casey Rogers and Eric Sheets are both volunteer cadaver dog team handlers who worked the devastating Northern California wildfires. I wanted to know how they find the strength to do this difficult work of finding the bodies—or in these cases, the bone shards—the only remaining clues to reveal the end of a life after these catastrophic fires.

Rogers is the kind of person you hope might be your neighbor. A lieutenant for the Alameda County Search and Rescue Team, Rogers and her husband Mitch went through the Community Emergency Response Team program together, to be ready to respond in a disaster. But that 32 Summer 2018

Casey Rogers works with Inkie at the Sonoma Fires.

wasn’t enough for them.

As she says, “My husband and I were looking to give back more to our world than just when a natural disaster happens. I ended up joining CARDA, (The California Rescue Dog Association) and then Alameda County Search and Rescue. Everything we do is 100 percent volunteer. We buy our own equipment and uniforms. I work a 60-hour-a-week job as well.”

Rogers got her start in 2013, with her black German shepherd puppy, Inkie, who was just 11 weeks old at the time. It took them about two years of focused work to get Inkie up to speed on his training. The first step was to get them both certified in Area, in which they must locate any live person in a given area of 120 acres. The next step was for them to be certified in large-search cadaver searches, and then a year later they were certified in locating small-source cadaver remains.

This is a one-acre test where

Mitch Rogers

Inkie and Casey have to find buried and surface human remains.

They, like other teams, will continue to hone their skills on locating bone, teeth, and cremains.

Although the hours are long, the expense is considerable, and the work is tough, Casey Rogers wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It is just amazing how these dogs can find a tooth or a bone buried three feet down,” she says.

“Whether we find someone alive or just provide closure for the family, it’s incredibly rewarding.”

When she tells me about her experience during the recent fires, Casey Rogers describes scenes from an inferno that consumed everything in its path. When she arrived at the Tubbs fire, the air was hot and thick, the smell of smoke was pungent, and active fires were burning all around them. Melted aluminum car rims flowed down the street like a river of mercury. Rogers recalls an air of unsettled calm.

“I don’t know how to describe the devastation,” she says. “It burned a hundred yards every three seconds. It was 2 o’clock in the morning when the fires came through. People grabbed their car keys and watched their house burn as they drove away.”

Of course, as humans were smelling acrid smoke and ash, the dogs were also inhaling the fumes of death.

“It was overwhelming for us.

It was nothing we could train for or prepare for. It must have been completely overwhelming for Inkie. He did find someone that day. He identified human remains—small bones. For a dog to find a bone that is two inches long under all that ash? It’s amazing. I don’t know how he does that. We were searching in twostory houses—only now they were 12 inches deep. There was nothing left; maybe a metal staircase was left standing. In some ways, it wasn’t personal. There were no pictures on the walls, nothing.

Somehow, it made it a little easier.”

Seeing whole neighborhoods wiped out was devastating. But for the cadaver dog teams, there is comfort in doing what needs to be done. As Rogers says, “We went in and did our job. At this point, the dogs shift gears. They know it’s serious business.”

Inkie knew. Like good K9s everywhere, Inkie has the ability to understand and adapt to what his work demands. “He loves his job, and he knows when it’s time to go to work,” Rogers says. “During a real search, something clicks and he’s a completely focused animal.”

That focus pays off at these

terrible times, when a person has gone missing and their family is waiting to find out the truth.

Casey and Inkie gave everything they had to locate the remains of the missing.

Of the Tubbs fires, she says, “We were there for 72 hours. We came home and slept and came back.”

In order to minimize the impact on the dogs, the handlers made a rule that they could only work two to three days in a row.

But the work takes a toll.

How does Casey Rogers cope on a personal level? “One of the people we were able to find, their family had been looking from them since Monday morning, and we found them on Saturday,” she says. “The family had been going from shelter to shelter. They were able to not do that any more. The family knows for sure they were lost in the fire. To be able to give that family closure, it makes it all worth it.”

But both K9 and human pay a price. How did Inkie cope in the days right after the fire?

“He was depressed for a couple of days,” she says. “He was lethargic. So I made everything super easy and super fun. I made it so he didn’t have to look for stuff. Generally, he loves to work. I was just reinforcing that life is fun again.

I have not gone back to intense work with him yet. By now he’s back to his bubbly bouncy puppy self.”

She’s recovered too. “Seeing Inkie go from a little depressed to back to himself was probably my therapy. We’ve done some pretty intense scenes. After these events, I would watch him just walk over and get his toy, but not really having a grip on it. When he’s enthusiastic, he’ll catch it in the air. He loves to tug, he’ll start talking, growling, smiling, he’ll do flips to get it. You can tell when he’s smiling, his tail is in the air and he bounces over to get his toy.

The public doesn’t understand how much work goes into getting a cadaver dog certified to search, or how many teams work together to find an individual, she says.

“I’ve had so many people ask me, ‘How many people has he found?’

But it’s a team effort. If we have five dogs working for finding one person, four dogs won’t find that person, but we’re all working together.”

The work is intense, and it has no end, as long as a dog team is out on the road.

“Literally, we train four or five nights a week. I put 15 or 20 thousand miles a year going to trainings and so on. No one has a concept of that. None of us would change anything, but it’s a big commitment—the food, the vet bills, the chiropractic bills— it’s hard for people to understand it. In Sonoma, to do this work, returning two people to their families, it’s been a five-year journey.

There’s the training, the time away from my family, missed holidays, missed birthdays. My daughter’s standing in front of me, smiling.

She knows.”

Both Casey Rogers and Eric Sheets emphasize that search and rescue is not a hobby — it is a calling. Each situation is a mystery waiting to be solved.

Like Rogers, Sheets finds great meaning in the work he does as a cadaver dog handler. A Coast Guard veteran, Sheets currently has two working dogs, Seven and Scarlett. Both are Australian cattle dogs, as were his first two, Bandit and then Tiger.

Why did he have a dog named Seven? Sheets laughs. “He was the seventh dog out of six in a litter.

The owners went to bed and their dog delivered one more in the morning. He’s lucky Seven. Seven’s had eight and a half years of work.

He’s certified in Area, Cadaver, Water, and Avalanche. He just loves to work with me.”

Eric’s breed of choice is Australian cattle dogs. As he says, “I like a dog that is forgiving, but loves to work and puts work with his partner above pretty much anything else. Australian cattle dogs can be challenging for an inexperienced handler. They aren’t huggable.

They are hard-driven, but devoted to their partners. I just love the drive and the independent thinking and how much they own their work. There’s pretty much nothing like it, to have a dog out there, hunting, looking for a target odor,

and negotiating with me.”

Like Rogers, Sheets has supports in place to help him recalibrate after a search.

“After so many missions, some tragic, some great rescues and others unsuccessful, I ride the ups and downs out by talking with my wife, Kim, and my teammates, who know what it’s like,” he said.

“My wife is always there for me, while we’re succeeding or struggling with whatever we are facing.

She’s my anchor. I could not do this without her. And I would not be doing this without close teammates that I trust.”

Sometimes the story of a search ends happily.

“On the third day, Sunday, we searched two lots where investigators were looking for missing residents from the fire. On both occasions, our dogs searched thoroughly and did not give any indication of odor, nor did they alert.

On the first assignment, we got word before searchers started sifting that the residents were found alive and well. On the second, we searched, and we got nothing. And after an hour of searchers sifting the ashes by hand, we got word that the resident was alive and well. We all cheered.”

Eric brought Seven to the Tubbs fire to the Journey’s End Trailer Park and Fountain Grove in Sonoma County on Friday, Oct. 13. On Saturday, the team searched Mark West, and on Sunday, they were sent to Coffee Park and Mark West again.

The smoke burned his eyes and throat, and Eric was thankful that Seven managed three consecutive days of work without any lingering effects. He was also thankful to be working with a search-and-rescue team he knew and trusted, and focused on the task at hand and keeping his dog from getting hurt.

But it was a scene of inferno.

“Once out in the field, I was stunned by the destruction,” he recalls. “We had nails and other sharp metal debris in the ash, holes to keep from stepping into, smoldering trees nearby to stay clear of in Journey’s End (one of which fell right after the team noticed it and moved away), burned through and snapped power poles, hanging

power lines, and transformers hanging upside down from them leaking coolant.”

To make matters worse, “While letting my dog out on a potty break away from the residences, Seven stepped on a large, angry nest of ground wasps (affectionately called meat bees). We got bitten and chased quite a ways before jumping in one vehicle and then another as they pursued us.”

From burned-out inferno to pursuit by meat bees, Eric and Seven put in hard time to help families find answers. Like Casey, he does not discuss the people he and Seven find. To maintain professional integrity in the work they do, they respect the privacy of the families involved.

Eric points out that negative finds are also an essential piece of information for searchers. Knowing that there were no victims at a specific location allows family members to continue searching until they find their loved one elsewhere. Either way, he is proud of Seven for his detective work, and knows he can trust his dog, and the expertise his dog brings to each situation.

We can count on the fact that there will be more fires. As bad as things can be, the courage and dedication of volunteer K9 teams like Casey Rogers with Inkie and Eric Sheets, with Seven, makes the difference between closure for a family versus ongoing, endless painful hope.

As Eric says, “Whether it’s a kidnapping, someone at risk, or a missing hiker, I want to do something to help and not just sit there watching the TV.” The recent fires have made it clear how vulnerable we are, and how much we need one another.

These K9 volunteers and their dogs, who ask for nothing and give back so much, are an asset to their communities. Bone by bone, shard by shard, dogs like Inkie, Scarlett and Seven reveal the answers to the mystery of a missing person, the scorching end of the story of a life.

Rachel Rose is a writer and poet and author of “The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in Courage from the World’s K9 Cops.”

Summer 2018 33

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After passing through the iron gates, you feel as if you’ve been transplanted to the Loire Valley in France. The home and grounds are decidedly in the French tradition.

“It’s been a labor of love for 30 years,” said current owner Diane Morris. “We worked with Porter & Steinwedell, eminent San Francisco architects of the era, to rebuild the home and have added on

considerably as our needs changed over the years.” Morris said there was nearly two years of construction required before her family was able to move in.

She went on to say she is an avid

extensive formal gardens. Morris said she has added on to the gardens extensively over the years.

“We also have a lush vegetable garden where our kids used to pick fresh vegetables based on what they wanted for dinner,” she said.

The lavish estate with expansive grounds has been the scene of considerable entertaining over the years, according to Morris. gardener and teamed with the “The home has been a lot late Walter Guthrie, one of of fun and it’s house that’s full the most highly regarded Bay of life,” Morris said. “It has a Area landscape architects of his time, to design the estate’s Please see Estate, Page 36

Summer 2018 35

ESTATE From Page 35

great entertaining space and we’ve hosted weddings and many other big celebrations there.”

Morris raised her family in the 3,500-square-foot main home that features three bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms, a large formal dining room and stunning living room, and she would like to see another family in the home.

“It’s a vibrant place and a great family home,” she said.

“The pool is more or less the centerpiece of the property.”

The stately home opens to a large entertaining area on the patio, which includes not only the gracious pool but also a fireplace, outdoor kitchen, tennis court, spa, sauna and full-size croquet area.

The beautifully appointed yet comfortable home affords breathtaking views in every direction.

And as you would expect from a large estate in the Napa Valley, the property includes a 7-plus-acre Merlot vineyard. Something you might not expect is the olive grove, from which a superb estate olive oil is made.

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Summer 2018 37

LIVING THE LIFE

A gray day for morality in Calistoga

K I R K K I R K PAT R I C K It was a gray and rainy day in Calistoga. I was sitting warming my hands on a stodgy mug of coffee at the Calistoga Roastery and reading one of the local papers.

It’s an honor system and the two little boxes for The Calistoga Tribune and The Weekly Calistogan sit side by side on the window sill near the entrance. They are both 50 cents, so you make your news vehicle choice, and deposit your change in the appropriate old cigar box.

Most people buy them both.

It’s like hearing the same gossip from two different people. You don’t mind hearing it again from another perspective, and the cross referencing can be useful.

I come from a nation of newsagents. Many in the U.K. religiously go into a small corner store on the way to work every morning, grab a snack, and buy a newspaper from the many options laid out like a fishmonger’s catch in front of you.

Each burst of newsprint tries to outdo the other with a lurid or sensational headline in poster sized font.

When I worked at the BBC in Inverness, an old Gaelic-speaking news hack told me about what he called the “Best Scottish sports news headline of all time.” It was a half-page header from The Sun newspaper on Feb. 9, 2000. Local minnows Inverness Caledonian met and defeated Glasgow giants Celtic, at their home pitch, 3 goals to 1.

The headline was, “SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC CELTIC ARE ARTOCIOUS.” When I came to America, the clusters of newspaper stands mystified me at first. You could put in a few quarters and then take one, two, or 10 newspapers if you felt like it.

This is in a nation with a prolific sense of distrust of human nature.

38 Summer 2018

A nation of handguns under the pillow, nanny watching CCTV, late-night cop show fearmongering, liability issues, and what seemed like “Private Property” or “Stay Out” signs in every backyard.

Getting your morning paper from an open candy jar seemed to be a quirky act of faith in human nature.

I think that this small gesture of editorial trust at the newspaper box, along with the national communal moment of the seventh-inning stretch at a baseball match and familial Thanksgivings, might be the three great pillars of American humanity.

There is a little bit of social conscience at play when you stand in front of those two small newspaper

“Table of Knowledge.”

The local worthies make pious observations on the behavior of everyone in sight. Speeds in the street, effective parking, red zone abuse, bicycles on the pavement, child control, table manners, and of course newspaper change box etiquette. It’s the Spanish Inquisition but with less teeth.

Thereby, and at last, I have meandered to the point of the story.

This particular gray and rainy day, Grumpy Dennis suddenly blurted, “Oh, Oh, looks like she doesn’t have any money!”

We all turned and looked over.

Next to the busy morning coffee line a lady was patting her pockets. As she did this, she was looking longingly at the two stacks of newspapers. The contribution boxes were sitting heavily on her conscience, above the luxurious wedges of printer’s ink. You could see that 50-cent morality question was puzzling her as she tried to resolve a course of action.

Not take a paper? Just take a paper and leave no payment?

We were all caught up in the drama of her dilemma. Her face brightened momentarily as she reached some resolution in her mind.

We watched transfixed as she approached the stack and lifted the lid of one newspaper box and took out two quarters. She then opened the adjoining box and dropped the two same quarters casually into other box.

After doing that she lifted up her newspaper from that stack, in a business-like manner, and joined the coffee line – her moral compass somehow intact.

change boxes inside The Calistoga Roastery. You could easily grab a paper and go without paying; it’s only 50 cents.

I often don’t have cash on me so I routinely drop a dollar into each box as a hedge against the day where I am short of change.

Oh, the irony of just having broken the law in Knights Valley, getting a speeding ticket from the CHP, while later that morning I’m trying to carefully track in my mind whether I am ahead or behind on my 50-cent newspaper tally at the coffee shop. Morality is not black and white of course; it can be gray and fuzzy, and selectively applied.

Colin MacPhail is a wine conIf there is a social conscience sultant and writer who lives in at the Roastery, it resides at the Calistoga.

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Summer 2018 41

Co-owners of Napa’s St. Clair Brown winery and brewery, Winemaker and Head Brewer Elaine St. Clair and President Laina Brown

Tim Carl Photography

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BLENDING St. Clair Brown Winery and Brewery covers the bases with wine, beer, and food

42 Summer 2018

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The Napa Valley has become a tourist destination for those drawn primarily by the lure of excellent wine and food. Yet many visitors and locals alike are increasingly searching for something more, namely craft beer. And St. Clair Brown Winery and Brewery has found an innovative way to satisfy this expanded range of tastes.

“We wanted to create a place for people to gather and enjoy wine, food and beer; and we wanted it near town,” said Elaine St. Clair, co-owner, winemaker and head

brewer. “And because we’re within the city we have more options than do most wineries in the valley.”

URBAN SETTING Unlike many of Napa’s destinations with views of verdant sweeping vineyard vistas, St. Clair Brown Winery and Brewery is located in what is ostensibly the city of Napa’s warehouse district. The expansive complex covers the corners of two city blocks and has a distinctly hip, new, urban

feel with an industrial winery and brewery sharing one corner, while across the street there is a lovely one-third-acre organic garden and cafe/tasting room.

The two owners, St. Clair and Laina Brown, president, are local wine-industry veterans who met in 2000 while working at Taittinger’s Domaine Carneros. Years earlier, St. Clair had studied wine- and beer-making at UC Davis and then joined Domaine Chandon’s winemaking team, working with master winemaker Dawnine Dyer, where she learned the art of making sparkling wines.

ELAINE ST. CLAIR “Elaine was an enologist at Domaine Chandon right out of college and even then she had a keen interest in winery process design and an entrepreneurial spirit,” Dyer said. “She’s an accomplished winemaker and has been a brewer for many years. I’m not the least surprised that she’s been able to make the connecTim Carl Photography tion between the current fascination for micro- Napa’s St. Clair Brown Winery and Brewery serves micro-brewed beers and small-lot wines at their brew and expanded it to small lot winemaking. Greenhouse Tasting Room and Café, located at the corner of Vallejo Street and Action Avenue.

She also comes from a Scottish background, so she’s always really enjoyed a good beer.” husband moved to the Napa Valley to raise that included all four parts of the operation: their three children. brewery, winery, cafe and garden.

SCOTTISH HERITAGE “My apparel business was going well and I “We wanted a space where people could “My parents are Scottish and I grew up in thought I could run it from up here,” Brown come together and enjoy both each other and England until we immigrated to Texas when I said. “It was fun at first — commuting — but our offerings,” Brown said. “Everything we was in high school,” St. Clair said. “My family it just became too hard and I ended up closing make is something we are proud to serve and loved wine and beer and we moved around shop to focus more on the kids. At the time, grateful to share. It has taken a while to get a lot. At one point we lived with an Italian I wondered if the skills I had learned in the here, and there is still more work to be done, family who made wine in their basement — fashion industry would apply to the local wine but we believe that what we’ve created is even it all had a big impact on what I’d eventually industry, too.” better than what we’d originally planned.” become.”

Brown had grown up in Alaska, where her One of the challenges of any winery in Beyond having a career making both still family had made berry wine and found a love the Napa Valley is working within the conand sparkling wine, St. Clair has always had a of wine made from grapes, too. She also grew straints of the Agricultural Preserve, which fascination with beer. In 1988 she co-founded to learn that the businesses of fashion and wine was designed to manage growth and protect and made beer for Napa Ale Works, selling were not too dissimilar. the environment. Although important to helpthe company in the late 1990s. Later, she “When you have a business that makes ing maintain the environmental health and went back to making wine, joining Domaine creative products and is run by creative peo- vibrancy of the valley, there are often tensions Carneros before becoming winemaker for ple, they have very similar dynamics,” Brown between a business’s desire for growth and the Black Stallion Winery in 2008. But she always said. “Because of the subjective nature of both, Ag Preserve’s constraints. wanted a venue to combine her passions. Enter much of the success for wine or design comes Any winery owner will tell you that if only Laina Brown. down to the passion and artistry of the people they could include a restaurant or deli on their involved. Also, because both of these industries property like the handful of grandfathered LAINA BROWN have very strong communities within what are wineries (V. Sattui; Domaine Chandon; BrassBefore becoming the founding president of very close-knit worlds, everyone’s connected; wood; the planned resorts of Auberge at StanNapa’s Black Stallion Winery in 2007, Brown having worked together at some point in their ley Lane and the currently under-construction had been Domaine Carneros’ director of mar- careers, most people know everyone else in the Four Seasons-run collective in Calistoga) they’d keting and hospitality since 2000. Earlier, business, which really helps, too.” be able to sell more wine and, therefore, make Brown had worked at a distributor/importer more money. The Ag Preserve does not allow company and was one of the first employees of A SHARED VISION, A such joint food-wine ventures. However, the Wine.com. Prior to entering the wine world, CLEAR STRATEGY city of Napa is not under the preserve. she’d owned and operated a fashion-design Over the years, as St. Clair and Brown “The Ag Preserve is critically important business in Southern California called Laina worked together they came to realize their to the valley,” Brown said. “Even here in the Westerland Apparel, where she designed and shared vision to create a small, local winery city, it has been complicated and taken lonsold clothing with a distinctly 1940s vibe. that combined their passion for wine, beer ger than we envisioned to get to where we are “Womens’ clothing in the ’40s was both and food. By 2010, they’d started making their today. But the community and the city have strong and beautiful,” she said. “It inspired own wine together and opened the doors to been excellent partners throughout the entire me.” the winery and cafe a few years later. In FebBy the late 1990s, she and her former ruary of 2018, they held their grand opening Please see Blending, Page 44 Summer 2018 43

Tim Carl Photography

BLENDING From Page 43

process, and I think we all believe we’ve set a good and sustainable example.”

As a part of their effort to set a precedent and be good neighbors, Brown and St. Clair have planted an organic garden and practiced restraint when it comes to production level limits and the hours of operation.

THE RATINGS Look up St. Clair Brown online and you will find a theme — their reviews are constantly at the top of the list. Their glass-enshrined café that spills out into a lovely little garden has remained ranked as the best restaurant in the Napa Valley by TripAdvisor for the last few years and has nearly perfect ratings on sites such as Google and Yelp. Customers rave about the friendly service and tasty offerings, and they often marvel at what is described as an “oasis” in the middle of the city.

BEER The recently completed microbrewery was funded in part by a crowd-sourcing “Kickstarter” campaign that raised thousands to complete the space. Cole, one of Brown’s sons, works at the winery and helped organize the efforts, whereas another one of Brown’s sons, Bren, has recently become assistant brewer.

“We are loving that the next generation is becoming so interested and involved,” St. Clair said.

“Also, the energy and excitement 44 Summer 2018

of the community to complete the brewery has been inspiring and we have plans to put in a taproom sometime in the near future.”

For now, guests can taste the various offerings at the Greenhouse Tasting Room and Cafe.

Each of the dozen or so beers is made in 60-gallon batches with each bottled by hand in 750-milliliter Champagne bottles ($20).

A tasting of three beers on tap is $15, $5 for 6 ounces or $8 for 12 ounces. Each beer I tasted had distinctly fine carbonation and rich, complex flavors and aromas. The Pilsner was fresh and clean with bright citrus and nutty overtones.

The Belgian ale was delicious and full of flavors of dried dates, balsamic vinegar, brown baking spices and vanilla, whereas the Black IPA was a chewy medley of molasses, Mexican coffee with cinnamon with a wonderful burnt-orange finish.

Wine While the beers have a distinctly British-pub heartiness, the wines are more delicate and refined. Made in small lots of often fewer than 200 cases each, the winery offers Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay for whites, a Syrah Rosé, Zinfandel, Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet for the reds, plus a sweet Muscat.

The 2017 Rosé (270 cases made, $35 a bottle) is not made by using the bleed from a red wine (saignée, which is a common practice for making many Rosé) but rather from the whole-cluster pressing of Syrah grapes, and it shows through its luscious mouth-feel and its spicy-strawberry-jammy richness. The 2015 Merlot (100 cases made, $52 a bottle)

comes from the Stage Coach Vineyard in Napa’s Atlas Peak region.

The vineyard was recently sold to Gallo, so it’s unclear how much longer this wine will be made, but for now those lucky enough to taste it will find a combination of lively red and blue fruits, dark tea and violet candy.

The 2014 Napa Cabernet (100 cases made, $95 a bottle) was a standout and reminded me of the 1992 Robert Mondavi Reserve with its elegance and super-long finish. Full of lingering raspberry, milk chocolate, earthy flavors and aromas, the brilliance of this wine hinges on its balance, allowing the natural acidity to carry it to another level.

A sampler of four wines costs $35, and tastes or full glasses can also be purchased (prices vary).

Most of the wines and beer can only be purchase on site as samples, glasses or bottles. However, a few local restaurants serve the wine (Rutherford Grill) and the beer (Ciccio, Gran Electrica, Miminashi).

Food The Greenhouse Tasting Room and Café, which is open Thursday through Saturday, noon to 8 p.m., and Sunday through Monday, noon to 6 p.m., also offers small bites such as a local cheese board with crackers, plump roasted pistachios and Rosé jelly ($18); creamy hummus with lemon zest ($9); marinated olives or roasted almonds ($5); and Pork Rillette with fig compote ($14), with some of the items coming directly from their edible garden.

Guests might also order food from Enya Barraza’s Taco Addiction food truck, which is often

parked on the corner. Barraza and crew have created one of the Napa Valley’s most sought-after food trucks, mostly because of their hand-made tortilla creations ($3) that are a blending of authentic Mexican street fare with a California flair, such as Negra Modelo-battered fish tacos and homestyle barbacoa.

Manifesto On the St. Clair Brown website, the owners have a page dedicated to the American Unitarian clergyman, writer and philosopher William Henry Channing (1810 to 1884). Using his words, they quote him in their own “Manifesto”: “To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.”

As the winery/brewery/cafe continues to evolve, both Brown and St. Clair aspire to channel Channing’s message.

“One of the things that Elaine and I always connected on were our ethics and values, and so we wanted those to be the centerpiece to this entire experience that we are sharing,” Brown said. “Our goal is to do everything we do with respect with an eye to leaving the world a better place for all of our children’s children.”

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Wine &dine in the Napa Valley

Summer 2018 47

J.L. Sousa, Register

A winning new

Michael and Krista Galyen have opened NapaSport in the South Napa Century Center, which Michael describes as a “fine-dining, custom-cut steakhouse with a sports lounge.” BOTTOM LEFT: The hummus trio from NapaSport in the South Napa Century Center features roasted garlic, red beet and sweet potato hummus with housemade flatbread and crudite by executive chef Liz Strole.

DINING A

SPOT NapaSport: Versatile options and a menu of classics

48 Summer 2018

E D UA R D O D I N G L E R

fter NapaSpor t opened its doors in south Napa in March, I’ve visited several times, each time noting that its welcoming feel has made it a daily spot for a number of guests; the bar is always at least half full no matter what time of the day, early lunch, afternoon or dinner time.

Of course, the new restaurant is more than just a sports bar: it also has a fine dining area, a private dining room, and take-out window; and with the opening of the outside patio, it seems to me that NapaSport is well on its way to becoming a Napa favorite.

The variety of clientele ranges from wine industry and hospitality folks to sports fans and foodies. Talking to a number of diners, I’ve found the average guest has established a favorite or two items on the

food and beverage menu.

Owners Michael and Krista Galyen can be spotted on a daily basis greeting visitors and explaining the restaurant’s concept to first-time dinners.

By their side are a handful of industry professionals including Steve Middler, a familiar face throughout the Napa Valley and San Francisco who made a name for himself at a handful of well-known eateries including Morimoto Napa, the Kimpton Group and Bottega in Yountville.

Also on the management side is James Crane, who was part of the Fieldwork Brewery Team at the Oxbow and Craig Rekhdal who’s cut his teeth at a some local popular spots like Bistro Don Giovanni, Bottega and most recently Basalt.

On the kitchen side Chef Liz Strole is working on new dishes. Last time I stopped by, she had me try a decadent

lobster macaroni and cheese that showed a balance between the creamy rich textures and pieces of lobster; it is making its menu debut shortly. I hear potato skins are also on the horizon.

“The atmosphere is quite varied. We have a good amount of families, winery teams and industry support,” Michael Galyen said.

“Large groups is an area that is starting to see growth as we evolve. Guests are starting to realize the potential and recognize the value and quality of our restaurant,” he added.

The team takes great pride in listening to the locals and evolving the menus as they go. Proof of this is the the beer list, which is now featuring Mare Island Brewery and Sonoma Springs on tap, aiming for a strong local presence.

The NapaSport Burger ($16) has become a staple creating a buzz and a lot of repeat orders; however it was not easy to master, according to Galyen, who said the bun took several tries until it got to what it is today.

Aside from the bun, the meat consists of ground “Omaha prime,” Michael says with a proud grin.

Another customer favorite is the steak program. “Guests are pleasantly surprised when they see the caliber of our steak by the ounce proposition,” Galyen said. “We serve high quality cuts including American Wagyu.”

Luckily for the health conscious, there is a variety of options that include salads and vegetables such as the Hummus Trio ($12), which features house made hummus in three styles with a range of crudités and pita bread. The result is quite the plating with a plethora of colors and textures — and no guilt.

In my experience, one can’t get enough boneless chicken wings, ($12). Perfectly crisp, they come in two presentations, Teriyaki and Buffalo. The latter packs a punch and is highly addictive.

Other favorites of mine include the Grilled Prawn Cocktail ($15) served with a

NAPASPORT SHRIMP COCKTAIL • 4 U-10 shrimp, peeled (except for tail) and deveined • 1 lime wedge • 1/4 avocado

• 1 slice red onion • 3 cherry tomatoes • 3 oz. cocktail sauce • 1 sprig cilantro

Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and grill until cooked through. Lightly oil the lime wedge, avocado, and red onion, and season with salt and pepper. Grill until lightly charred. Dice the cherry tomatoes into quarters and dice the red onion and avocado. Gently toss everything together. Spoon the cocktail sauce into a bowl and put the avocado/tomato mixture on top. Pick the cilantro leaves off the stems and place the leaves on top of the tomato mixture. Dip the shrimp in and eat.

COCKTAIL SAUCE • 1 cup ketchup • 1 1/2 tsp. prepared horseradish • 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce • ½ tsp. NapaSport Hot Sauce

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

NAPASPORT HOT SAUCE • 1 lb. red Fresno chilies • 6 cloves garlic • 2 cups rice vinegar

• 1/4 cup water • 1/2 red bell pepper

Cut the stems off the red fresnos and rough chop the chilis. Take the seeds out of the red bell pepper and discard them. Rough chop half the red bell pepper and add to the red fresnos. Put all ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce head to a simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour. Blend everything in a blender and strain it through a fine mesh strainer.

deconstructed guacamole, it delivers a range of flavors and textures from charred to sweet and creamy layers of the avocado.

On the sweet side definitely some not-to-be missed items include the Mud Pie, (which has become a signature), the Cocolate Mint Rice Krispies and the pie of the day made by Michael’s mom, Linda. Pies are on a rotating platform that includes a spot-on blueberry pie and, if you’re lucky, you can catch the lemon curd pie which is just delightful.

On the beverage side, an emphasis on Napa Valley wines is available by the glass and throughout the list. There are a few favorites on my world, the Hansell ‘Sabella’ Chardonnay offered on the bottle list delivers a serious and expressive wine at a value hard to find.

On the cocktail list, some of the most popular concoctions include the Bruce Lee Matcha green tea-infused vodka served with a ginger simple syrup, ginger beer and turmeric bitters garnished with a visually pleasing

long cucumber slice wrapped around the glass — sure makes for a healthy and easy to drink beverage.

The Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage offers a richer profile.

Bacon-infused rye whiskey, Amaro Averna and house-made chili bitters offers a memorable experience with a long lasting zing from the unusual ingredients. It’s served with a maple glazed bacon chip that satisfies a ‘savage’ craving.

Due to the present excitement of the NBA playoffs and the adventurous nature, the ‘Stephen Curry’ cocktail is a must have; made with vodka, blueberry Shrub, Jozen Uonoma Junmai Sake from Niigata, Japan, it is visually appealing and thirst quenching.

A peculiar aspect of this eatery is the multifaceted dining experience, guests can opt for a casual fine dining experience in the main room with an elegant tone away from the visual stimulation or the bar side with televisions all around playing sports all day.

The recently unveiled Happy

Hour is from 2:30 to 6 p.m. everyday, when everything is priced below $10, including bar snacks, beer, wine, cocktails and spirits.

The patio offers a different experience with roughly 40 seats, shared activity zone and plans to include live music on weekends.

It’s an option to take advantage of the weather complimented by a caressing South Napa breeze.

Another aspect of NapaSport is the to-go window. “We feature a daily dinner prepared and ready to enjoy with the family at home,” Galyen said. “Options are all very different and they all have a following but the most popular, hands down, are Turkey Thursday and Ribs Friday.”

There is a generous serving presented for $20 a person but certainly shareable. The hours for take out are until 2:30 for lunch every day, 5 to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 5 to 11 p.m. on weekends.

When asked about the parking, which is an inevitable concern for all due to the movie theater, restaurants, hotel and gym, Galyen said he is taking care of the aspect with complimentary valet parking for all NapaSport diners on Friday and Saturday, which is when the highest demand for a precious parking spot occurs.

There is overall a consensus that NapaSport is a great addition to the Napa Valley landscape with its varied experience options for a date night, business meeting, birthday, game day and casual occasions.

Worth noting the hours of operation are from 11 a.m. through 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends. Out of those hours from 5 p.m. on the main dining room is open. What if your favorite team is playing? Rest assured NapaSport will be open as long as the game takes.

NapaSport is at 145 Gasser Drive, Napa. The menu and other information can be found at napasport.restaurant. For reservations, call 707-927-5956; take-out, 707-266-1216; and events 707-927-3428.

Summer 2018 49

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Aerialist Rosé IS A

STANDOUT TIM CARL tf carl@g mai l. com

Jonas Cellars’ Zac & Katy Long create Cabernet Franc-based wines

A

s more and more California winegrape growers plant more and more Cabernet Sauvignon, it is refreshing to witness brave souls who buck the trend and explore what other varietals can offer. Zach and Katy Long, the duo behind Jonas Cellars, have created a small but wonderful collection of Cabernet Franc-based wines — from both Napa and Sonoma — including a Rosé they call the Aerialist.

“This is really a passion project for us — it’s what we do when we come home after work,” Zach said. “It’s like if a computer coder came home at night and just couldn’t wait to sit down in front of the computer and write more code — that’s us.”

The analogy is apt because Zach’s day job is as wine director at Sonoma’s Kunde Family Winery, where he oversees the winemaking at the 1,850-acre estate, of which 750 acres are planted in vineyards, a few dating back to the mid-1800s. After spending all day crafting a variety of wines from dozens of different varietals of grapes, Zach spends time working on Jonas’ wines.

“We only make about 300 to 400 cases total per year of all our Jonas Cellar wine, and for the Aerialist Rosé it’s more like 40 to 50 cases,” he said. “We’ve been making the Jonas wines

TIM CARL PHOTOGRAPHY

Zach and Katy Long, the duo behind Jonas Cellars, toast their newly released 2017 Rosé atop one of the Kunde Sonoma vineyards where some of the grapes used to make the wine were sourced.

since 2006 and we’ve never made a profit, but we are doing it because we believe in the uniqueness of Cab Franc and the wonderful expression of place you can get when it’s grown in different places.”

Zach explains that although he believes that Cabernet Sauvignon is relatively “easy” to grow and make, Cab Franc is “just about as challenging to grow as Pinot Noir” and is a varietal that requires that the growers and winemaker get to know the site intimately.

“With many Cab (Cabernet

Sauvignon) vineyards you can walk out there and say, ‘Yeah, this is looking good and will make great wine,’” he said. “But with Cab Franc you need to spend time out in the vineyard and get to know the site and how the vineyards are interacting with both the geology and environment — it can take years to fully understand a Cab Franc site.”

and support that they have,” said Katy, who is a brand advocate and wine educator for Vintage Wine Estates and co-owner of Jonas Cellars. “There are some winery owners that might frown on the winemaker having their own brand, but the Kundes have encouraged us every step of the way.”

As a part of that encouragement they’ve even planted a vineHUSBAND-ANDyard designated for Jonas Cellar WIFE TEAM wines.

“We feel exceptionally fortu“The reason we felt it was nate that the Kunde family has provided us with the flexibility Please see Aerialist, Page 52 Summer 2018 51

AERIALIST From Page 51

important for Zach to keep his passion project is that it gives him one more reason to maintain his love of the wine industry,” said Jeff Kunde, chairman of the board of Kunde Family Winery.

“Zach is a farm boy at heart and what a better way for him to be in contact with his vines and wine all year long.”

ROSÉ A GROWING INTEREST While Rosé wine only represents about 1.5 percent of the total table-wine category, according to Nielson, sales grew 40 percent in 2017.

“People are looking for something new and different,” said Glenn Hugo, winemaker at Girard Winery and also winemaker of his own brand, Hugo Family Cellars, which makes a delicious Rosé, too. “Folks want a wine that is lower alcohol and

can pair with a range of foods, so it makes perfect sense that Rosé is growing in popularity.”

Rosé is not made from a specific grape or region but is instead a classification of wine, like red or white. The rose color of Rosé is derived from contact with red (often called black) grape skins.

Often the wines are made using a winemaking technique called Saignée (“sohn-yay”), which means “to bleed” in French. This process of siphoning off a portion of red wine juice after it has been in contact with the skins and seeds has two results: 1) an often lightly colored juice that can be made into Rosé and 2) greater concentration for the wine being “bled.”

Saignée is one reason there is such a wide range of flavors and profiles for Rosé-style wines. A winemaker can bleed off any red grape varietal and the results can be vastly different. Every winemaking region has its own take on Rosé, but the most famous is arguably the Provencal Rosé from Southern France. These wines are

often made from blends of the local grapes, such as Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvedre and Syrah, and sometimes with the more obscure Vermentino (Rolle), producing bright, salmon-colored wines with flavors of red berries, fennel, dried herbs and tangerine.

Less famous perhaps but equally as compelling are often the Rosés from the Loire Valley, of which the Cabernet d’Anjou is often made using Cab Franc grapes that have flavors ranging from cherry to baking spices. Unlike the Provencal Rosés, which are meant to be enjoyed within months of harvest, the Loire Rosés are often capable of being aged for years.

THE AERIALIST ROSÉ The 2017 Aerialist Rosé has just been released, and with a limited 44 cases made and at $30, this wine will not last long. Although primarily Cab Franc, this blend also includes up to 15 percent Grenache. The wine shimmers a pink-salmon color, which is both beautiful and enticing. Aromas of orange marmalade, ginger and

tangerine zest burst from the glass and are echoed in the mouth with additional lasting flavors of green cardamom, porcini mushroom, sweet sage and white peach.

This is a wine that would pair well with cheese (think goat cheese and mushroom tart) as well as charcuterie, crab cakes or nearly anything grilled over an open flame (rosemary, garlic and balsamic marinated grilled baby zucchini, for example).

“We spend our time thinking about and talking about wine — we are pretty obsessed,” Zach said. “And Rosé wines, along with our other wines, are all made without compromise. We are not becoming rich and famous from our efforts, but we have a nice life and besides, if we have a few extra bottles left over we can always drink them ourselves, which is something I can live with.”

The newly released Jonas Cellar Rosé wines are worth seeking out and can be found locally at Napa’s Bounty Hunter or ordered directly through the winery’s website.

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The Puzzle Society Crossword “Sunday Freestyle XXII” by Victor Fleming, edited by David Steinberg

© 2018 Andrews McMeel Syndication

ACROSS 1 Pancake 9 Tangent and others 15 Jilted 16 Plummer of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” 17 Piece of protective footwear 18 Bran cereal add-in 19 Mom, in the backwoods 20 Practices driving, say?

22 “___ it down a bit” 23 Mexico city dwellings?

24 Running late 27 Lady Godiva’s home 30 Put in one’s two cents 31 Hall-of-Fame shortstop

54 Summer 2018

Aparicio 32 Fair hiring letters 33 Unrushed gait 34 Dons 36 Ancient Andean 37 Hamburger’s “Darn it!”

38 Gradually weakens 39 Bay structures 40 Pint-sized sorts 42 Sale price superlative 43 Golf’s Calvin or football’s Rodney 44 Caesar wrap?

45 It’s in and out quickly 48 Golfs, e.g., briefly 51 Perks 52 Certain gender reveal

9 Unusual individual 10 Gathers 11 Formosa, now 12 Unwillingness to bend 13 Norse god who rules DOWN Asgard 1 “Where are you ___?”

14 Tweeted and twittered 2 It may harden into 21 Scrub diligently obsidian 22 Fork feature 3 Once again 24 Gaucho’s weaponry 4 “___ que?” (Spanish for 25 Memorable stretch “Why?”) 26 Drake or Jay-Z 5 Unrealistic Lays portion 27 Sophisticated quality 6 In easy reach 28 Is awesome 7 “Another Saturday Night” 29 What matzo lacks singer Sam 34 “Not so fast!”

35 Blunted blades 8 Reflex test site 54 “The Graduate” role 55 TV, newspapers, etc.

56 Skin-related 57 Peaceful state

36 State known for its fair 38 Songwriter/singer Gwen 39 Fido, for one 41 Decorate freshly, as a Christmas tree 42 Not as tight 44 Church fraction 45 Online news source 46 Rod on a hot rod 47 Google count 48 Middle of Caesar’s boast 49 Legal order 50 Make laugh a lot 53 High mil. rank ANSWERS ON PAGE 72

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Where IN THE Valley?

How keen is your eye for Napa landmarks?

Our photographer J.L. Sousa travels a lot of miles in pursuit of his images and along the way he’s taken some shots of interesting, quirky, and unusual objects, many of them in plain sight from major roads.

But it can be surprisingly hard to identify these places when you zoom in just on the details, even if you pass by the spots every day.

How many of these Napa County places can you identify?

Answers are on Page 72.

56 Summer 2018

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58 Summer 2018

A seasoned chef in the Napa Valley E D UA R D O D I N G L E R

After training at Cole’s and Brix, Marcos Uribe is leading Cordeiro’s Steakhouse

T

here is a secret on the east hills of Napa tucked on the way to Lake Berryessa on Monticello Road. Open for a few years, Cordeiro’s Steakhouse is an oasis for locals and tourists. As you drive up towards the lake on the outskirts of Napa, you might have wondered about the property that once housed Bayleaf Restaurant with lush and colorful gardens.

As you walk in, you find yourself traveling back in time. Perhaps it’s the leather-covered chairs, the exposed red brick or the classically stocked bar complimented by Frank Sinatra singing “Fly me to the Moon.” Or maybe it’s the warm hospitality offered by a team of seasoned professionals including Renaissance man Samuel Gebru and his unparalleled hospitality.

Regardless of the reason this place evokes an “I’m home” feeling.

As you sit at the bar waiting for the rest of your party or unwinding from the day’s fun, you open the menu and smile. Aside from the timeless drink fare, the dishes stick out and make your mouth water. Jumbo white prawn cocktail, wood oven roasted Oysters Rockefeller and Fresh Maine lobster cakes are only the first three items featured in the lounge menu.

The list continues with a hit after another that my grandparents would have approved of and yet so contemporary and satisfying.

The menu execution is in charge of a familiar chef in the Napa Valley, Marcos Uribe.

Before joining the Cordeiro’s Steakhouse team, Chef Uribe spent more than a decade overseeing Celadon Napa as executive chef, after working at Chef Greg Cole’s iconic Cole’s Chop House on Main Street in Napa.

Uribe arrived in Napa in 1989, and he joined Dunn Vineyards where he covered a couple positions from harvest, cellar work and bottling.

Although this was a great experience, he says he knew this wasn’t his calling. Around this time, a friend of his worked at Spring Street

Cordeiro’s Steakhouse executive chef Marcos Uribe.

Restaurant in St. Helena (now Goose and Gander). He started working as a dishwasher and for the first time got a taste for the restaurant world. Shortly after, he moved up to prep, lead brunch and then dinner cook. For about two and a half years, he learned the ropes in the kitchen working with an American-style menu.

During this first kitchen job, he says he couldn’t help to experience deja vu every time he walked through the kitchen feeling like he’d been there before.

In his next move, arguably the most critical in his kitchen career, he applied for a job at Domaine Chandon in Yountville under Chef Philippe Jeanty’s guidance.

With a big smile, he recalls Chef Jeanty saying, “You won’t last a week.” His stint at Domaine Chandon ended up lasting five years.

“It was like going to culinary school,” he says.

He explained that each cook was responsible for all steps to execute a dish, he said, meaning

J.L. Sousa, Register

it started with butchering, cleaning produce, making stocks and sauces, cooking and plating. Though most restaurants have a dedicated position for each step, during that time he learned and perfected techniques applied to high-end cuisine while also working with a high volume of guests.

In 1996, he decided to join Chef Todd Kowashi opening Brix Restaurant in Yountville were he evolved as he made use of what he had learned at Domaine Chandon on top of applying creativity to come up with the daily specials as one of his tasks.

Aside from chef Kowashi Uribe, he says there were a handful of chefs that influenced his career during his time at Brix. Chef Chad Hendrickson, who oversees the culinary program at Hess Collection Winery, Chef Pablo Jacinto, currently at the Silverado Country Please see Chef, Page 60

Summer 2018 59

CHEF From 59

Club and Chef David Nuno who runs Brasswood in St Helena, were some of the chefs he recalls working with and learning from.

Uribe’s driving force in the kitchen, aside from creativity and execution, is passing knowledge along to young, passionate cooks.

“I thoroughly enjoy watching inspired youth finding their way in the kitchen,” he says. “I remember this kid showed up and asked for a job so he started as a food scraper.

He liked the kitchen life, learned and grew, and these days he is a sous chef at Thomas Keller’s Per Se Restaurant in New York City.”

On his time off, which is not much considering the kitchen is his life, he enjoys camping in Mt. Shasta with his wife where he can relax thanks to no cellphone reception. They both also enjoy salsa dancing when time allows; some of their favorite spots include Cafe Colome and the Cigar Bar. When asked about local dining, he says they enjoy Zuzu and La Toque in Napa, Mazatlan in Hercules and Fonda in Albany, although he mentions they don’t go often on outings as he likes to use his commercial kitchen at home.

I asked him how long he’s been married and his response was something I don’t hear every day. He said after being married for 10 years from 1989 to 1999 they got divorced only to remarry five years ago when they realized they were soulmates. His kids, a Bichon Frisée, a Shitzu and a Yorkie-Chihuahua keep the household lively.

Uribe enjoys helping out the community and being involved with fundraisers in the area like Hands Across the Valley, Napa Valley Auction and Clinic Ole’s Chili Cook-off.

Being in the Napa Valley he enjoys the local bounty, favoring a handful of wines like Shafer ‘Red Shoulder Ranch’ Chardonnay, Duckhorn Merlot, Caymus wines and Rombauer — but he admits his love for tequila, backed up by a collection of more than 30 bottles at home.

AT CORDEIRO’S Cordeiro’s Steakhouse is the brainchild of local businessman Matt Cordeiro who grew up enjoying in this style of eateries and has an eye for detail. During a couple stops during the day I saw Matt working on the landscape, checking the flowers and rearranging the greenery with a parental eye.

The restaurant counts with a quaint dining room separated in small areas making it intimate to enjoy a romantic dinner or a business conversation. A couple of private dining rooms, used by large groups for events like weddings and business retreats, are completely separated 60 Summer/Fall 2018

Marcos Uribe photo

Cordeiro’s Steakhouse executive chef Marcos Uribe shares his Big Ranch Farms oven roasted heirloom tomato soup with grilled bread, buffalo mozzarella and basil.

WOOD OVEN ROASTED HEIRLOOM TOMATO SOUP WITH GRILLED BREAD M A RC O S U R I B E • 6 pounds of Big Ranch Farm Heirloom tomatoes • 4 slices of Applewood smoked bacon cut into pieces • 1 sweet onion, diced • 2 leeks, washed and cut in 1/4 inch slices • 4 Bay leaves—(fresh is better) • 2 sprigs of thyme • 6 fresh sliced garlic cloves • 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil • 10 leaves of basil, julienned • 1 cup red wine—(Pinot Noir or other preference) • 1 pinch of cayenne • Salt and pepper to taste Place whole tomatoes with 2 or 3 tablespoons of your extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper on a sheet pan, place in 400-degree oven for 30 minutes.

Remove tomatoes from oven and let cool, peel and hand crush onto sheet pan. Save liquid.

In a small pot put the bacon sliced into pieces to render the fat until it is crispy. Add cup of wine to bacon in pot until everything is dry. Add leeks, onion, bay leave, and thyme cooking until soft. Add crushed tomatoes and juice to pot, the rest of your extra virgin olive oil, basil, and pinch of cayenne pepper. Let cook for 10-15 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a slice of grilled bread, salt and pepper to taste.

Cordeiro’s Steakhouse executive chef Marcos Uribe shares his Big Ranch Farms oven roasted heirloom tomato soup with grilled bread, buffalo mozzarella and basil.

from the main rooms.

They have a full liquor license and you can enjoy a range of classic spirits aside from an all Napa-Sonoma wine list featuring a strong lineup like ZD Vineyards, Del Dotto Vineyards, Staglin Family Vineyards, Grgich Hills, Clos du Val, Lewis Cellars, Gargiulo Estate Vineyards and Hundred Acre.

Continuing on the food side, you’ll find Snake River farms Kurabota Pork, Akaushi Steaks and Fulton Valley chicken grilled on their signature mesquite grill in addition to an array of starters like a tableside prepared Caesar

salad, caramelized onion soup with gruyere and a seafood variety including king salmon and swordfish.

The restaurant is directed by seasoned general manager Bashar Elkhalil, who spent nearly 30 years at the Royal Oak restaurants at the Silverado Country Club in Napa.

Cordeiro’s Steakhouse, at 2025 Monticello Rd., Napa, offers dinner Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Bar hours are from 4 p.m. to closing. For more information, call 707-224-1960, email cordeirosbg@att.net or visit the website cordeirossteakhouse.com.

J.L. Sousa, Register

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dream Gratus Vineyards grows an exotic tree preserve along with its wine brand TIM CARL Some people collect stamps or coins, but Thomas and Victoria Wargovich, owners of Gratus Vineyards in the Pope Valley, collect trees. On their remote Napa County ranch, the couple has planted 10 acres of vineyard but also more than 1,000 different kinds of trees, many of which are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s critically endangered species list.

Thomas Wargovich purchased the property in 2001, intent on becoming a vintner and building a dream retirement sanctuary. At the time, he had not yet met Victoria, and no one was living on the property, which had never been planted to vineyards but did have

a small pond and acres of rolling he’d go on to become a cardiac hills dotted with oaks. surgeon, his childhood interest in plants was once again rekindled.

A LIFELONG PASSION “It’s an ideal place to plant “The vision was always to build nearly anything,” he said about a place where I might live out my his property and the surrounding life in balance with nature,” War- region. “Many people don’t undergovich said. “For years I’ve loved stand that Pope Valley is often wine, but the trees are a lifelong cooler than the floor of the Napa passion. And I thought, what Valley. My collection of trees has could be better than living in a grown over time, and now I have botanical garden or an arboretum one of the biggest collections of — that would be my dream.” conifers on the West Coast.”

While gathering the needed According to Wargovich, there permits to plant vineyards, he are 30 different native species of started planting trees around the conifers (cone-bearing seed plants) property a few at a time. His on the West Coast, whereas he undergraduate degree from West has planted more than 300 types, Virginia University had been in including the Wollemi Pine, a spebotany/biology, and although cies that was once thought extinct

until being discovered in 1994 in a wilderness area of the Wollemi National Park in the New South Wales region of Australia.

“I’ve become a collector over the years,” he said. “For example, we have 50 species of oaks. And I think there are like 30 types of Cypress trees in the world and I have 29. Basically anything that can live in a temperate zone, be it Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Asia or the Americas — all of them can grow here. Tropical plants don’t do well here, but nearly anything else — it’s an amazing place.”

“We hope to do a lot for the Please see Gratus, Page 64

The owners of Gratus Vineyards in Pope Valley, in the eastern hills above the Napa Valley, have planted more than 1,000 trees, many of which are endangered, on their property.

Tim Carl

Summer 2018 63

GRATUS From Page 63

preservation of species,” he said.

“But there are challenges. Just getting the plant material can be tough. There are many nurseries that can ship live plants, but they need a special license. Others ship seeds or even cuttings.”

BECOMING A VINTNER Wanting to understand what it means to be a hands-on vintner, Wargovich completed the twoyear viticulture and enology program at the Napa Valley College, worked at GeoVit (a small Napabased vineyard management and irrigation services company) and interned with winemaker Sean Capiaux at O’Shaughnessy Estate.

As the permits began to arrive, Wargovich went to work planting vineyards. By then, he’d married Victoria and they both went about planting much of the vineyards themselves. Now they grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petite Sirah, a tiny block of Cabernet Franc and several white Rhône varietals, including Grenache Blanc, Marsanne Blanc, Roussanne and Viognier.

By 2012, the vineyards were producing fruit, the trees had grown into what is now an adolescent forest and the couple’s home and barn were complete.

Capiaux had introduced them to winemaker Robbie Meyer (co-owner of Peirson Meyer Wines and previously with Lewis Cellars, Peter Michael, Jericho Canyon and others), and he was hired to make the wine.

“It all starts in the vineyard,” said Phil Burton, the Wargoviches’ neighbor and owner of Barrel Builders, a winery supply business that furnishes barrels and tanks to wineries.

“Tom and Vickie started with raw land and built a showplace vineyard, doing most all the backbreaking labor themselves — not like some ‘vintners’ whose hands never get dirty,” Burton said.

“I’ve been impressed over and over again since they’ve started as to how much of the endless labor 64 Summer 2018

Tim Carl

they handle themselves. People don’t often mention love as a contributing factor to grape quality, but in this case, it’s obvious. One look at the vineyard and you’ll agree. Their love of the land and the vineyard may not be unique, but it’s awfully refreshing to see in these days of factory farming.”

blend of mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with touches of Malbec and Petit Verdot, it’s ample and complex fruit balanced with a dash of spice, along with the pleasing tannins, completely drew us in, making our decision easy when selecting which wine was best suited for our members who are always looking to discover affordTHE WINE able Cabernet whose quality sits The quality of the wines res- high above its price range.” onates with Burton’s words. I tasted three of them: The 2016 THE FUTURE Gratus Vineyards White Blend During our tour of the prop(200 cases made, $29 a bottle), erty, Wargovich and I had talked the 2014 Malbec (50 cases made, about trees, wine and the future. $45 a bottle) and their 2014 Gratus, Latin for grateful, is the Flagship Red Blend, a Cabernet name of their brand, but it also Sauvignon-based wine (125 cases speaks to their being grateful for made, $65 a bottle). the opportunity to become a part The White Blend was a deli- of the Napa Valley community, cious Southern French-style blend grateful to have provided a place of Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, for endangered trees to thrive and Marsanne, and Viognier. This grateful for the chance to play a straw-gold wine was vibrant with part in Pope Valley’s growing repcandied citrus, honeycomb, carda- utation for producing excellent mom and green mango, and it is wines. an excellent example of why these But there had also been a particular Rhone grapes should thread of concern about what the be planted more widely in the future might hold. region. The Malbec was clean and “I’m sure you know the pressoft with voluminous dark fruit, sures that small vintners labor smoky pencil shavings and fin- under,” Burton wrote in an ished with dark cherry and sage. email. “It takes love, skill and The Red Blend was big and meaty an incredible amount of work to with brambly blackberry, sweet make a great wine, and this the vanilla, nutmeg, a hint of mint Wargoviches have done. Howand black pepper in what was a ever, if you can’t sell your product lovely long finish. All the wines you’re doomed, and this takes a would compete well with many different skill set which is often of the more expensive Napa Valley at odds with the farm ethic. In offerings from the valley floor. my years of being in the wine “We found the Gratus Red business I’ve seen so many small Blend to be absolutely perfect for brands fail — not because of wine our ‘Under the Radar’ wine club quality but because distributors last July when we first discovered cotton to the big producers, and it,” said Karen Williams, owner there are so many brands these of ACME wines in St. Helena. “A days that it takes a superhuman

effort and a lot of luck to market a micro-producer. It’s one of the saddest things I’ve seen as the wine industry has ‘matured.’”

When the Wargoviches imagined their future property, they pictured a verdant landscape full of trees, vineyards and animals, a lush farm that, with enough work, could sustain itself over time and provide a pleasant life for them and their descendants.

“My hope was that our three shared daughters might one day take over the operations. But given the fact that it’s very expensive to live here and because of the restrictions of having people come up and visit to taste wine, I just don’t know if that will ever happen,” he said.

Wargovich worries that without the ability of small farmers to make a living wage from their land, they’ll be forced to sell, most often to large corporations that are the only ones able to purchase and maintain an expensive endeavor.

“I’m concerned about what might happen to our small communities if everything is owned by large companies and the younger generations are being pushed out because they can’t afford to live here,” Wargovich said. “I mean, who’s going to sit on the local school boards and volunteer as firefighters?”

We had ended the tour in his wine cellar, where one small window’s light beamed down on a tray of recently sprouted conifer seedlings. As we sat, Wargovich fiddled with the young trees, shifting them out of the direct sunlight as he checked their soil for moisture.

“I just don’t know,” he said, looking back down at the delicate saplings, “but I imagined things would be a little easier at this point.”

Gratus wines can be purchased from their website, www.gratusvineyards.com, or locally at Sam’s Social in Calistoga, ACME Fine Wines in St. Helena and at R&D Kitchen in Yountville. Tastings can be arranged by appointment at the winery where their production takes place, which is just south of Calistoga.

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PATZ & HALL WINERY

TURNS 30 Through three incarnations, wine makers stay true to their vision TIM CARL Donald Patz and James Hall met while working at Napa’s Flora Springs Winery and formed their partnership — Patz & Hall — in 1988. Since then, along with their wives, Heather Patz and Anne Moses, they’ve become one of the most prolific and successful non-vineyard-owning wine ventures in California, making highly sought-after Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from some of the region’s most prestigious vineyards.

And although they sold their winery to Chateau Ste. Michelle of Woodinville, Washington, in 2016, their focus and passion remain.

“We are thrilled with our partnership with Chateau Ste. Michelle because it has allowed us to keep making the wines we have always wanted to make,” Hall said. “To be honest, we were not exactly sure how things were going to play out before the sale, but now we can focus solely on making wine, which is a relief in many ways.”

Since the company formed, the Anne Moses and James Hall, two of the founders of Patz & Hall Winery goal has remained the same — source wine grapes from the best Eventually they both procured there,” Hall said. “Flora Springs vineyards and make wines that jobs in the Napa Valley on the used the classical model of winehighlight the unique qualities of production side of winemaking making — they owned the land, each site.

— Moses working at Napa Valley’s vineyards and had rehabilitated a Far Niente, Spring Mountain and beautiful old ghost winery, but we SETTING THE STAGE Cain Vineyard and Hall working had started talking about an alterAlthough Hall and his wife, at Flora Springs and Honig Vine- native approach to that model.”

Moses, would eventually transfer yard and Winery. As they learned What they were noticing was to U.C. Davis, both started col- how to make and sell wine, they that it might be possible to secure lege at UC Santa Cruz, where they became friends with the Patzes. contracts for grapes from growers met at a wine-tasting and found a “I had worked at Flora Springs and then make the wine at a winshared passion. for five vintages and met Donald ery that had extra capacity.

66 Summer 2018

Tim Carl

THE NEGOTIANT MODEL OF WINEMAKING “We employed what is a fairly common negotiant model of winemaking in Europe — we didn’t have our own vineyards or winery,” Hall said. “But what may have been a little different than the normal approach was that we went for the highest quality we could Please see 30, Page 69

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30 From Page 66

find. And to do that, we sourced from the best vineyards in Napa, Sonoma and even beyond.”

One of the benefits of their approach was that they were able to start the Patz & Hall brand with only $5,000 in 1988.

“I was making wine at Honig by then and they’d helped out other small wineries, such as Hess Winery when they were under construction,” Hall said.

“Hess had bought a bunch of tanks but when they left they didn’t want them and sold them to us. So at that point, one of my jobs as Honig’s winemaker was to maximize the utilization of the winery and equipment, so we had a bunch of custom-crush clients and I consulted for some other producers, too.”

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Hall approached Louis Honig and asked if they might make their own wine, too.

“He was OK with it, so long as we didn’t make any Sauvignon Blanc or Cabernet Sauvignon

(the wines he made for Honig),” Hall said. “So we focused on Chardonnay and then later added Pinot Noir.”

DIVIDE AND CONQUER Together with their new partners, Patz & Hall’s first vintage was harvested in September 1988. Hall and Moses focused on making the wine; the Patzes would head up the sales and marketing.

The production side of the business model was underway, but what the team knew was that they needed to procure fruit from only the top producers.

They spent the next few years searching out the best grapegrowers throughout the region, eventually joining forces with many who have become some of the most iconic Chardonnay and Pinot Noir growers in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino — Hyde, Hudson, Pisoni, Dutton, Chenoweth and Alder Springs.

FOLLOW THE GRAPES “We worked with a couple of growers who were excellent, but then we met Larry Hyde in 1989,” Hall said. “That was

really the beginning of our Napa Chardonnay program — the Hyde fruit being an entirely different level of quality than most other growers at the time.”

“James is a talented winemaker and has become one of my best friends over the years,” Hyde said. “He has always specialized in buying fruit from cooler regions and making wines that have bright acidity, which I believe supports the fruit, is the fruit. In this way the Patz & Hall wines are able to showcase the vineyard.”

“We spend a lot of time going out and finding what we feel highlights unique aspect of a particular vineyard or region,” Moses said. “We spent lots of time hunting, but when we found one, we all just know it.”

By the mid-1990s, the Patz & Hall brand was becoming synonymous with quality vineyards, which helped usher in — along with vintners such as Aaron Pott, Nickel and Nickel, Duckhorn and others as well as grape-growers like Beckstoffer — a new focus on efforts to make and grow grapes in a manner that might highlight single vineyards.

MAKING IT WORK Before the four partners quit their day jobs, Donald Patz had been the national sales manager at Flora Springs and Girard, and Moses had shifted from wine production to sales, becoming the national sales manager for Cain. This background and collection of contacts, similar to Hall’s contacts in the world of wine and grape-growing, allowed them quick entry into the often cumbersome and difficult world of wine sales. And with reviews beginning to recognize their wines with high scores and accolades, growers were beginning to see the value of linking their vineyard to a quality brand.

“There were a lot of upstart wineries in the Napa Valley at the time,” Hall said. “We’d seen a bunch of different strategies, like the big approach: You make a fortune, you buy your estate, plant your vineyard, build your winery, but we realized that was impossible for us.”

Beyond the economic benefits of their negotiant model, the other benefit was that instead of Please see 30, Page 70

Summer 2018 69

Tim Carl

Larry Hyde, one of the first Napa grape-growers to sell to Patz & Hall Winery in the late 1980s, still sells to them today.

30 From Page 69

GOING FROM VERSION 1.0 TO 2.0 “From 1988 to 2005 we had no employees, no office, no tasting room — it was Patz & Hall 1.0,” Hall said. “But we wanted to make it 2.0 and professionalize the business, building the direct-to-consumer wine business, so we needed a tasting room. The warehouse in Napa worked because the zoning laws allowed us to have visitations and make wine, too.”

They also hired an outside consultant, Deborah Steinthal from Scion Advisors, and an outside fiduciary board of directors.

“We decided that we were going pro,” Moses said. “We spent a year with Deborah and the team developing a succession strategy.”

having to plant their own grapes on a single site, they were able to pick and choose grapes from wherever they found the best available. “ We’d sometimes play a game, asking each other, ‘If you had all the money in the world what vineyard would you buy?’”

Hall said. “And we could really never come up with an answer for Chardonnay. I mean, there was Rochioli, Hyde, the Allen Vineyard and Hirsch out on the Sonoma coast, Kistler, Acacia, Chalone, Mount Eden, but we were not convinced that other great vineyards were not still yet SELLING A BRAND to come.”

By 2016, they’d made it through the Great Recession and BUILDING A BRAND moved their operations from Napa By the late 1990s, each of the to Sonoma, where they’d built a partners was able to focus 100 winemaking facility and visitors percent of their attention mak- center. They also hired dozens of ing and selling their wines. And employees and grew the brand according to Hall, one of the keys to include two non-vineyard-deswas their continuity and the fact ignated wines. They’d also been that each partner was fully com- made an offer by Ste. Michelle mitted.

Wine Estates to purchase the com“It wasn’t like any of us had pany, or as Hall puts it, “Patz & anything else to fall back on,” he Hall 3.0.” said. “We had to make this work “Their (Ste. Michelle) idea is to because we’d each invested every have a ‘string of pearls’ where they penny into its success.” want each of their wineries to have As the brand grew, the part- their own unique identities, spaces nership decided to locate in a and winemaking styles, so for us it small, non-glamorous warehouse was just a perfect fit,” Moses said. space just south of Napa.

“Their focus is on sales, admin, 70 Summer 2018

compliance, purchasing — all the stuff that is critical from the business side — and that allowed us to focus on winemaking and the grower-relation side.”

Whereas some brands are reluctant to sell to a larger corporation, the Patzes and Halls found the agreement with their new owners to be better than they expected.

“It’s an awesome situation,” Hall said. “No more agonizing discussions about health insurance, which would go up 18 or 20 percent a year. We have 20 employees and they all have families and kids.

We paid well and had great benefits, but it was getting to the point where running the business was becoming more time-consuming and more important than anything else.”

The wines are still made by James and Moses, and the most of the old grape contracts remain intact, ensuring the same level of quality for future wines.

“I’ve seen some situations where a new owner comes in and immediately throws out all the existing contracts so that they can use their own grapes and decrease the margins,” Hall said. “But Ste. Michelle was adamant about keeping all the old contracts, and most of the growers found the security of having a reliable business partner reassuring.”

Tim Carl

its portfolio. Most of these come from single vineyards, but there are a few newer wines that buck that trend, including the 2015 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir ($45) and 2016 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay ($40). They’ve also started making sparkling wines, with a 2013 North Coast Brut ($55) and a blanc de blanc and rose sparkling that are soon to be released. Each of these cuvée-style wines is bright and clean with clear fruit elements and aromatics that often highlight fruit over earth tones, such as the golden apple and quince in both the Chardonnay and Brut.

The single-vineyard wines often hinge less on pure fruit and gravitate more toward minerality, sweet-toasted oak and complex roasted meat or grilled mushroom elements. Of the wines I tasted, there were many standouts including the 2016 Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay — Carneros ($65) and the 2015 Hyde Vineyard Pinot Noir — Carneros (425 cases produced, $75), each wine highlighting why the Patz & Hall brand is one of the few that has made it for 30 years.

“What we hope we’ve created is something that will carry on beyond us,” Hall said. “There will be a moment when we’ve retired and gone, but the brand and our original vision has a chance to stay vibrant. It has been a wonderful ride, and we are truly grateful to THE WINES all those that have journeyed with Patz & Hall has always been us on this path. We thank them all known for the broad array of Pinot and look forward to many more Noir and Chardonnay wines in years to come.”

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Summer 2018 71

THE ANSWERS

Here are the answers to our Where in the Valley quiz from Page 56.

Le Paris Artisan & Gourmet Cafe in American Canyon.

Napa Hot Yoga, located at 1660 Silverado Trail.

J.L. Sousa, Register

J.L. Sousa, Register

CROSSWORD ANSWERS FROM PAGE 56

St. Joseph Health Prompt Care facility.

Billco’s Billiards and Darts at 1234 Third Street.

72 Summer 2018

J.L. Sousa, Register

J.L. Sousa, Register

1

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ITALY From Page 20

used to be downtown. I remember it as a little girl because I would go there and buy focaccia.”

Sometimes working in a bakery gives you away in ticklish situations.

“I was told that he was to be Santa Claus at a family gathering and the kids spotted the flour on his shoes and knew right away it was ‘Nando,’ (short for Fernando)” Chapdelaine said.

“My grandfather lived across First Street from the Oxbow in a little house on the riverbank. He had a horse and buggy and would come up to our house in Spring Street in Alta Heights and pick up all the kids and take the whole group of them prune picking so that they would be out of their parents’ hair.”

Chapeldaine smiled, remembering there were probably more prunes thrown than picked by the youngsters.

“My brother Larry (Lorenzo) and I probably threw more prunes at each other than we picked.

They were hot and juicy and they hurt.”

She said her father, Joe Pighini, spoke only Italian when he first attempted Napa’s original elementary school, Lincoln. But in kindergarten, the kids were allowed to speak only English so he eventually lost his ability to speak in his native tongue.

“During the Depression,” Chapeldaine said, “the Italians would shoot robins to flavor their gravy. My grandmother said that’s what they survived on, just that gravy over noodles and that was it. They also picked the cherry plums from the trees on the Alta Heights hills to make what they called ‘depression jelly.’ It was really sour because sugar was too scarce to use in jelly.”

“Money was scarce back then, in addition to working at several different auto repair places including Jobe’s Auto Repair, which is still here and the old Oldsmobile garage, which is not, he later also worked as a tow truck driver at night,” Chapeldaine said.

74 Summer 2018

Napa County Historical Society

Miss Napa County pours a bucket of water into what would become the Alta Heights Reservoir when it was christened pm April 3, 1948.

With her are dignitaries including the current and past mayors of Napa.

The lifelong Napan said her father’s job as a tow truck driver was more interesting that anyone imagined.

“You wouldn’t believe the prominent men that he picked up at the brothel down on Seminary and Third in the ‘40s and ‘50s because their car wasn’t working and had to be towed,” she said.

“He never ever shared names because he was too much of a gentleman to do that, but he did say May Howard, the madam, was famous, and that her place had lots of rooms.”

She said that while her father was considered to be a city boy, her mother, O’Leta, grew up “in the sticks” near Healdsburg in very primitive conditions.

“I was born in Napa in 1949 and I was number 3 of 4,” she said. “When mom and dad married, Alta Heights was a cow pasture and East Avenue was a dirt road. When we moved to Julian Avenue, the only other house on the street belonged to the tax assessor, Ken Hotelling. Mom and dad bought from old man Trestle, who owned a really trashy auto court where people were drinking and fighting day and night.”

Chapeldaine’s parents forbade their children from going there.

“But of course we did,” she said.

“We would cut through down there to walk to Silverado Junior High.”

Chapeldaine said her parents bought a 100- by 300-foot lot with six giant oak trees on it.

“Mr. Trestle was selling them for $300. But he charged my parents $50 more because there of the

at the invitation.

“Of course no one was allowed to know,” she said. “Can you imagine the mob scene over there had people known?”

Chapeldaine said they were never far away from a drink of cool, fresh water. “There were underground springs that would just bubble up. That was cool.

We could just lean down and get a drink of water whenever we wanted and we never got sick.

However, I would always end up with a major case of poison oak,” she grimaced.

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the lunch counter at Woolworths was a popular spot to take a break after shopping at nearby JC Penney or other downtown stores.

“We used to go down to the Woolworths for the grilled cheese and the fries. And I remember my girlfriends and I would wear pegged pants with solid color sweatshirts, and curlers in our hair with bonnets that matched the sweatshirts.”

She eventually returned to her roots and purchased a home on Ramona Avenue in 1997, just a block and a half from her childhood home.

“I love it up here, it’s still very peaceful and there’s a lot of wildlife around.”

As proof, the day of our interview we spotted a doe and her fawn wandering down Montecito Boulevard near the Mormon church in broad daylight.

Chapeldaine said she occasionally rents out her spare bedrooms and because of the many frogs around, had to get earplugs for my guests to wear at night so they could get to sleep.

Her comfortable home is decorated with many watercolor paintings by her mother, who she said had a real eye for things in nature.

The paintings include many historical Napa houses and buildings.

Take a drive, bike ride or a walk around lower Alta Heights today and you will find the neighborhoods almost exactly as they were when first settled.

six oak trees. It was a handshake deal, pay as you go. Back then your word meant something,” she said.

“They had to take down one oak tree because it was growing into the house, but the three in the backyard are still there,” Chapeldaine said.

The early days of Alta Heights featured some rather unusual household pets that you are not likely to see anymore.

“When I was a little girl, my sister was good friends with a girl named Bobbie who lived in the house where I live now. When my sister Janice would go over to visit she discovered they had a caged mountain lion in the backyard, which, believe it or not, was some what common around here at the time,” she said. “When I finally saw the animal, it scared the bejeebies out of me because the mountain lion would pace and always keep his eyes on me.

I had nightmares forever that it was going to come through my bedroom window.”

But the house across the street had one more secret that didn’t come out until after the fact. Elvis Presley once dined there during the 1960 Napa Valley filming of “Wild in the Country,” his seventh film. Turns out one of the older kids at her neighbor’s house was working on the film, and invited Presley over to dinner one night.

Chapdelaine said she was told the rock ‘n’ roll star was tired of being cooped up at Napa’s Casa This is the first in a series proLu Al motel (now known as the filing Napa County’s distinctive Wine Valley Lodge), and jumped neighborhoods.

Summer 2018 75

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