Hot water

The Natalie News. Get this – Nat and Stefan have this idea for a concert at his family’s winery. They think they are going to get Lynyrd Skynyrd to perform. They’re calling it Skynyrd in the Vineyard! Now, aside from the fact that I think this band of Southern rockers perished in a fiery plane crash decades ago, why, assuming they are living, would they want to come to Napa - is there a fan base here? Nat and Stefan are hardly concert promoters. There are marketing considerations, tickets to sell, security to hire, a hundred permits, miles of electrical cables and who knows what else. Oh, shirts. They’d like Red House polos for the staff. And they want to start working on the design for these NOW. Well, it will be interesting to see what comes of this. It would be a first for Red House, and not necessarily in a good way. Well, there’s always something interesting to talk about with my niece at the dinner table!

We did a little family outing last weekend to Calistoga. Call it “Yellowstone Light”. No grizzly bears, bison or wolves but there is The Old Faithful Geyser of California and it’s right off Highway 128. (www.oldfaithfulgeyser.com) Someone had told me that Sonoma County’s Geyserville has the largest geothermal area on earth and that seemed like something the kids should know about. You enter through a really tacky gift shop, a relic of the “70’s road trips I took with my parents. Once in the vicinity of the geyser it felt like we had stepped back even further in time, to when dinosaurs roamed the earth. As there are no dinosaurs available, there are instead pens of sheep and llamas to connect you with earlier epochs. (A reach.) Actually, I think the critters are there to entertain kids between blowings, as the geyser is not constantly spewing hot, putrid water. In fact, you wait about 35 minutes to see an eruption of 350-degree water shoot straight up maybe 60 feet for four or five minutes. This is preceded by some gurgling, bubbling up and steam, but it’s not something a five and eight year old want to stand around looking at. (Note to parents: bring quarters for the animal chow pellet dispenser.) We packed a picnic but ended up packing it out because while the setting was fun and educational, it smelled like a combination of petting zoo and the forgotten Easter egg I found just last week in the garage. With a last whiff of hydrogen sulfide and goat pen, we left to eat on the grounds of Cuvaison Winery (www.cuvaison. com). And taste: they just introduced the 2004 Brandlin Cabernet Sauvignon and its big, bold spice will make you think of winters by the fire. As it was over 100 degrees today I preferred the summery 2007 Sauvignon Blanc. Cheers!