Wannabe Wino Wine Blog

Tasting Room Ceiling!

I must admit, I am EXTREMELY late in finishing up my last few posts from my trip in Napa after the Wine Blogger Conference.  On our last very very busy day in Napa, Thea, Ashley, and I had signed up to attend a blogger event at Hall Winery. Now, I’ve written about some of the Hall Wines in the past, you can read those posts here and here. I really enjoyed the wines and couldn’t wait to visit the winery to taste the other offerings. After an extremely restful night at the Napa Valley Marriott (which by the way, I loved, but that’s for another post) we headed out bright and early to Hall.

We arrived first and explored the tasting room and started the day with a taste of the 2008 Hall Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. Wine at 9am? Sure!

2008 Hall Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc: Citrus, melon, tropical notes, grapefruit, white pepper, lemon, tart crisp, lemon grass, orange zest, nice structure and acidity.

The remainder of the bloggers arrived via shuttle and we were off for a tour of the winery. We climbed up on the catwalk, went into the barrel rooms….omg, SO many barrels and learned all about how Hall makes wines.  Hall Winery recently became the first Gold LEED certified winery in CA and are making progress toward achieving organic certification. I liked that most of the winery is covered in solar panels, supplying about 35% of the winery’s energy needs.

After touring the facility, we headed to the vineyards that surround the Hall home in Rutherford. The vineyard manager walked us through the wines and talked to us about owl boxes, pruning, decisions on when to pick, and pretty much anything we wanted to ask about the vineyard practices.

We settled in for a wonderful lunch, of which I will leave you with pictures, and a tasting of two more Hall wines.

2006 Kathryn Hall Cabernet Sauvignon: Black cherry milk chocolate, roses, perfume, black currants, spice, earth, cocoa powder, espresso notes, pepper, spice, and dark fruit.

2006 Hall Napa River Ranch Merlot: Bright plum, spice, herbs, some red berries, pepper, tannins, anise, soft plum fruit, pepper, dark chocolate, red berry edges.

Following lunch, we descended into the wine caves where we were joined by

Ambassador Hall

Ambassador Hall as we played winemaker in a blending experiment. Ambassador Hall impressed me. She was really interested in us, and seemed to have done her homework on who we were, our blogs, and our backgrounds. In a previous career, Ambassador Hall was an attorney, so she spoke at some length with Amy and me about our work, and also talked to the group about being raised in a California wine family and the work she does with charitable organizations in Napa.

Although we took our leave before the end of the blending, I came away fully impressed with Hall Winery and I hope to visit again when they have completed the restoration of the original Bergfeld building on the Winery property. Also, the art all over the winery was extremely cool…the Hall’s are avid patrons of the arts and everywhere from the caves to the tasting room you could find unique and interesting pieces!

Filed under: California, Vineyards, Wineries | Comments Off on Down these fine Halls