Can We Ever Really Go Back?

Our unanimous favorite of the vineyards we visited two years ago in Napa Valley was Truchard.

The wine was very good, but Betsy, our tour guide, was the highlight. Fun and approachable, she poured generously, and we giggled our way through the tour! Truchard is a small vineyard with a small staff; the employees, along with their families, picnic together at lunch during harvest. They do not own their own bottling facility. Like many other small vineyards, they use a portable bottling facility (the back of a truck!). We were fascinated to watch this efficient, yet seemingly casual, process while we were there.

Although Betsy was our favorite tour guide and was so delightful, it was Linda, a long-time Truchard employee, who provided us with the best quote of the trip: "It takes a lot of beer to make a good wine!"

Not long ago, I received a postcard from Truchard. Instantly the memories from that trip flooded my mind.

The four of us had such a great time on that trip to Napa that we're planning a return trip this summer. We're all looking forward to another memorable trip, perhaps this time with more friends joining us.

But as I think ahead to that trip, I wonder if we can really go back?

{I can't help but feel like Carrie Bradshaw as I pose that question. In the television series Sex and the City, every episode was centered around a question the character asked in her weekly column.}

When we have a really great experience, we often want to re-create it. We try to do everything the same in order to achieve the pleasure that we felt the first time we experienced it. But it's never quite the same the second time around.

Out of the hundreds of vineyards in the Napa/Sonoma/St. Helena area, we visited a dozen or fewer. For our next trip, we certainly have options: Will we revisit those that left us with such memorable experiences? Or will we leave those memories intact and make new ones?

Can we ever really go back?