Toni goes to the gym early Monday through Friday so we never saw her in the morning. Most days Charlie was working around the house. They told us the best way to get into Washington D.C. is to drive east on Interstate 66 to the Vienna Metro Light-Rail Station, the end of the Orange Line, and take the metro to the Mall. We did this each day we were there. The entire trip from the Gauthier’s to the D.C. Mall took about 2 hours.
Generally, we left the house at 9:00 am as we did today. The Smithsonian stop on the Metro is beneath the USDA at Independence Ave. and 12th street making it a quick walk to the Mall. We started toward the Washington Monument. The monument is having a new elevator system installed so we couldn’t go to the top but we took plenty of pictures.
Next we walked down to the World War II Memorial which lies between the Washington and Lincoln Monuments and shares the reflecting pool with the Lincoln Memorial. We then walked down to the Lincoln Memorial then over to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Before I go any further, if you’ve been here you know that all of these monuments and memorials are awe-inspiring and hard to describe in words. The photos may help.
After lunch we went over to the National Gallery of Art. We started with the sculptor galleries and then upstairs to the 19th century painters. We had to leave at 4:30 pm to get to our wine tasting dinner in Oakton so we didn’t get to see all we wanted. We will be back tomorrow.
The wine tasting dinner in Oakton was at the Oakton Wine Shop and Bistro which is owned and operated by Bryan Gauthier, Charlie and Toni’s son. We had net Bryan about 15 years ago in Napa. Charlie, I and others had met in Sacramento for a meeting on a Friday and Diane and I decided to go to Napa for the weekend after the meeting. At the meeting I found out that Charlie and Toni were meeting Bryan in Napa for the weekend as well. Bryan at the time was a wine buyer for Fleming Restaurants. After the meeting Charlie and I said our goodbyes and we said maybe we will run into each other laughing because Napa is pretty large and has many vineyards.
Lo and behold on Saturday we ran into each other at the Robert Mondavi Winery. Bryan invited us to join them as they were just going into a private tasting. The tasting was fabulous and Diane and I bought a bottle of wine that you could never find in a store. After the tasting Bryan told us that we have to go to the Regusci Winery over in the Stags Leap Appellation. We thanked Bryan for the great tasting experience, said our goodbyes and went over to Regusci Winery.
At the Regusci Winery we tasted their wines, all were fabulous, and bought 3 bottles of their signature wine, Angelo’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. We will forever be grateful to Bryan for the tasting and the tip on Regusci Winery.
Back to the wine tasting dinner at Oakton Wine Shop and Bistro. The wine was from Catena Vineyards in Mendoza, Argentina. A representative from the Catena Winery presented the story behind the wine, the various soils in their vineyard, and the grapes they grow. The meal was prepared by Bryan and his staff and they even made vegetarian options. The meal was great and the wines were fantastic. We met quite a few locals and had a good time. We bought a couple of bottles to bring back to Laguna Beach.
