I know I have talked about Venge before - but I have to mention how we came across them........ Our first visit to Venge Winery was back in Sept of 2007 I believe. Every year my husband and I head up to Napa wine country to meet
my family for a few days of R&R and wine!
We usually rent a house, attend a fancy winery dinner, and scope out new
and interesting wineries. Sometimes
though my husband and I want to taste a little more then the rest of the family
and so on this day we set out in hopes of finding a cool small boutique winery. We were headed from Calistoga down the
Silverado trail when we saw a sign for Venge, having no idea what it was we
thought the sign looked cool and we made a left off the beaten path to find
it. When the road sort of narrowed
straight looking way too much like a driveway we veered right where the main road
seem to head. That was a mistake. Luckily we didn’t go to far when we realized
we had to have past it. We turned around
heading back the way we came finding yet another road that veered to the right
and a sign that said Venge. HA! We found
it, and off we went down the road. In coming up on building it was a quaint looking old building and we headed
up the stairs to the tasting room. It
turns out that winery was an old Ghost Winery called Rossini Ranch. The lady who helped us was great and even showed
us a around to the rooms down below. The
wine was good and we bought some to ship home as well. As we were leaving my
wonderful husband had to embarrass me since we were bounding down the stairs
and Kirk Venge was coming up the stairs.
My husband recognized him from the photos in the winery and asked for a
picture. He was nice enough to humor us. (and some day when I find that picture
I will post it!) We drank the few bottles over the next few months and seemed to go about our
way. Later on another trip to Napa
we heard about Silenus Vintners tasting room.
This place is really cool if you are into the really small
wineries. This is the place that people
who have the grapes go to make wine when they don’t have a winery. Also, some individuals who have the grapes
not only do not have a winery but they do not have a winemaker either. We walked in and were greeted by an awesome
dog! I had to admit I had to stop to pet him.
We started tasting wine from their extensive list. A wine from this place and that we
tried. What was interesting were all the
wines we ended up liking had one thing in common – the winemaker was none other
then Kirk Venge. Hmmm, we knew that
name. We purchased several bottles to
take home and sure enough they were awesome. In February 2009 we went back up to Napa
for our annual Valentines Day dinner and tour of some wineries. We decided to look up Venge winery again and
stop by. We called ahead and Jason told
us they were having a private party for wine members but to drive on up to the
gate. He said just get close to the gate
and it will open on its own. Having
heard that they had moved we decided to take out chance and use the address
currently listed in the magazine and it was clear it was not the ghost winery
we had first been too. Since the
location was new there were no signs. As
we cruised up the Silverado trail I was lucky enough to be checking out the
phone poles on the side of the road and spotted the address. We made a U turn and headed up the private
drive with the address. There were 4 of
us in the car all thinking are we in the right place or are we
trespassing. The deciding factor was
when we came up to a gate, we were all sort of laughing at this point and said
hey get really close, if it opens they we are hoping in the right place. Sure enough the gate opened, we pulled up
still weary about crashing someone’s party.
We entered a beautiful house amongst the vineyards immediately asking
for Jason saying he told us we could head in.
Everyone was amazing and nice. Although Kirk was not there for this trip
his amazing wines were. My husband and I
could not help but joining his wine club.
We figured if we kept coming back to any wine he made, we should
probably just join! Email me your wine story and I will pick a story to post each week!