{"id":1714,"date":"2014-07-04T18:12:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T01:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/?p=1714"},"modified":"2014-07-15T20:52:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T03:52:09","slug":"4th-of-july-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/2014\/07\/4th-of-july-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"4th of July weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hill and I are off to Clearlake to celebrate our Nations Name Day.\u00a0 We are looking forward to a weekend of wakeboarding and adult\u00a0 beverages with our great friends.\u00a0 Luckily for us, our route to Clearlake is via the Silverado Trail through Napa.\u00a0 Of course, we could not resist visiting a few wineries on the way up.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/paraduxx.com\">Paraduxx<\/a> is one\u00a0 winery I have wanted to visit for awhile.\u00a0 We parked the boat into the lot and headed in for a tasting.\u00a0 The tasting fee is $30, so Hill and I decided to share aTasting.\u00a0 Johnny Bon brought out our tasting flight and introduced us to the winery and the wines we were tasting.\u00a0 We tasted the 2013 Napa Valley Rose, 2011 M blend, 2011 C blend, 2011 Rector Creek Red Wine, 2011 Howell Mountain Red Wine, and Johnny treated us to a bonus pour of their 2011 Goldeneye Anderson Valley Pinot Noir.\u00a0 I enjoyed all of their wines.The M blend was a Merlot-Zin blend. It was full of red fruit, plum and spice.\u00a0 I found the mid range heavy in tannins (for my taste)\u00a0 but the finish was well balanced and even. The wine is well priced and would go well alone or with food.<\/p>\n<p>The 2011 Rector Creek and Howell Mountain are really good Zin-cab blends.\u00a0 The price point is a little high but, you do get what you pay for.<\/p>\n<p>Last stop before heading over the hill was <a href=\"http:\/\/cuvaison.com\">Cuvaison<\/a>.\u00a0 We first discovered Cuvaison on a recent weekend trip to Sonoma. I was really excited to visit the original tasting room on the Silverado Trail.\u00a0 It did not disappoint.\u00a0 The tasting flight was their 2012 Kite Tail Chardonnay, 2012 Estate Pinot Noir, 2012 Estate Syrah, 2011 Brandlin Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and their 2012 Brandlin Zin.\u00a0 All of their wines were delicious and well priced.\u00a0 We are considering joining their wine club.\u00a0 The one that really got my attention was their 2012 Estate Syrah.\u00a0 It gas a deep red plum color and a nose that will make your mouth water.\u00a0 It is full of dark berry fruits with bacon, pepper and silky tannins.\u00a0 It is everything you look for in a Syrah.\u00a0 The 2012 Brandlin Zin is also worth mentioning.\u00a0 It is old\u00a0 a old vine Zin full of spice and pepper with hints of caramel and vanilla on the finish.\u00a0 It is complex and mature and worth discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, not a bad way to start off the holiday.\u00a0 Happy 4th of July.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-old-glory-patriot-flag-phill-petrovic.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" title=\"old-glory-patriot-flag-phill-petrovic.jpg\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-old-glory-patriot-flag-phill-petrovic.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hill and I are off to Clearlake to celebrate our Nations Name Day.\u00a0 We are looking forward to a weekend of wakeboarding and adult\u00a0 beverages with our great friends.\u00a0 Luckily for us, our route to Clearlake is via the Silverado &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/2014\/07\/4th-of-july-weekend\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,13],"tags":[409,407,456,408,50,411,193],"class_list":["post-1714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-braxs-blogs","tag-anderson-valley","tag-cuvaison-estate-wines","tag-napa-valley","tag-paraduxx-napa-valley","tag-pinot-noir","tag-silverado-trail","tag-syrah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-old-glory-patriot-flag-phill-petrovic.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1714"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fantastetic4.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}