Premier Napa Valley 2006

Greetings all!
I'm just back from my annual trip to the Premier Napa Valley Auction, but I'm sorry to say that I came away empty-handed this time.
It's not that there weren't any good wines, it's just that all of the wines sold for what I thought were more than they were worth. (What this really means is that restaurants bought them and you'll have the priviledge of paying WAY too much for them if you happen to come across any of these 5, 10, or 20 case limited productions)
Here are a few brief points about my trip, and I'll try to be succinct.
1 - We spent our first three days in the Anderson Valley, and I highly recommend getting up there if you'd like to experience the slower pace of what wine making/farming is REALLY like.
The wines of Handley and Husch made a big impression and Brutacao makes some unusual Italian varieties into wine. It's a SLOW pace, and I was without phone service, T.V. and internet connection the entire three days we were there!
2 - Skip Mendocino, and take a picnic lunch/dinner to ELK (about 18 miles south of Mendocino), to watch the sunset on the Pacific. There's a great public park right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, and you can even hike down to the beach if you'd like.
Be sure to get there before 5:30 if you want to buy anything to snack on, because everything shuts down by then!
3 - The Hendy Woods Redwood State Park was amazing! It was surreal in the old-growth woods that made it seem like dusk even when the sin was high. We'll definitely go back!!
...and for Napa...
4 - The seminar that I attended with some Napa bigwigs was pretty interesting. When I asked the panel if there was any consensus among them as to what was the status of natural cork-vs-alternate closures, you could hear a pin drop, and NO ONE volunteered an answer! When I pressed them for SOMEthing, Bob Foley, of Pride Mountain Vineyards said, "Well, we're all still using corks, but the IS no acceptable level of cork taint" (Although that seems to me to be an obvious contradiction, I let it go at that.) I much prefer the answer that John Guilliams gave me when we were talking one-on-one the next day. To paraphrase, he said that although natural corks were flawed, they still seem to be the best closure for long-term aging, and until something "provably better" comes along, then he doesn't anticipate any one changing. (God bless Plumpjack, for having the foresight and gumption to bottle their top-o-the-line wine with BOTH closures!).
There were plenty of lame questions asked of the panel (which included also Randy Lewis, Ed Sbragia, Mark Beringer and Craig Williams), but I thought that Bob Foley gave the most insightful answer I've ever agreed with. Basically, the question had to do with how many "tons per acre" is the best, and after a few others danced around with that question, Bob piped in that the REAL question should be how many "pounds per vine" is the optimum, since there are such varying numbers of vines planted per acre.
I've been laughing for years at salesmen that come and tell me they only used grapes that produced "less than insert number here tons per acre", and every one of them was BRAGGING about it! So remember, the next time someone tells you how few tons per acre (and you'll see it ALL the time!) their vines produce, ask them "how many pounds per vine is that? (or you could ask them their plant spacing, and try to figure it out in your head, but it's more fun to watch THEM try to figure it out!)
I would say that if the answer is 5 pounds or less, then they're in the right ballpark!
5 - Overall, it was a VERY enjoyable trip and I discovered a few new wineries, but you'll have to wait 'till they're available here in Texas before I tell you about them!
6 - I need to use less exclamation points!!!

Here are a few links that will be helpful in understanding my latest adventure...
http://www.avwines.com/

http://napavintners.com/news/release.asp?ID_News=95

Cheers!