March Mustard Madness, and Segway Napa Fun!

March is always a fun month in the Napa Valley. The mustard is in full bloom, the lupin are starting to bud all over the valley. The annual Mustard Festival will soon have their marketplace- this year at the River Walk in Downtown Napa. (March 13/14)
Green emerald hills, rainbows arched over the vineyards, bright yellow patches please your eyes as you drive down the country roads. St. Patrick Day celebrations are in full swing. Check out our fun history article at http://www.smalllotsbigwine.com/virtual-tours, then click on Napa History.

The downtown merchants are getting ready for the season. Lots of sales to move merchandise as new arrivals get stacked in the back rooms. The downtown tasting rooms are gearing up as more and more tourist realize how much Napa has to offer in the way of history and wine tasting. Stop by Mason Cellars at the Oxbow for a complimentary tasting. Get a Napa Valley wine for the $20 range you won’t find that often. Unbelievable that this tasting room hasn’t truly been discovered – but now you know!

Another fun tasting room is Gustavo-Thrace. Stop by and maybe Gustavo- of Bottle Shock fame – will be in the tasting room pouring his wines. Or you can get lucky and the ever so charming Thrace will share her vast knowledge of wine and the best places in town to visit. Or - - set up a private tasting tour with Segway Napa and we’ll take you there, and throw in a little history.


Our regular Napa History tour does not include the tasting rooms, but we will show you where many of them are. What you get on our Beyond Wine Tour is a few treats that are exclusive to Napa, quirky facts about Napa that will surprise and delight you, and a fun ride as we glide through redwood lined streets of painted ladies. Oh, yes, we did have a red light district, but painted ladies refers to the glorious Victorian Mansions, many of which are now Bed and Breakfasts! You can stay in the spring for a pretty good discount and get the best breakfast Napa has to offer!

Spike is our promotional mascot. Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that Spike likes really expensive cheese that is accidentally left in the grocery bag - so now he has to work for his room and board! Here he is making sure gliders stay safe on the trails!

Below is a very short video of segwaying in Yountville - this is a family shot, our family-we don't normally allow little kids to ride with their moms - but it's cute so we thought we'd share it :)


We hope to see you soon!
Happy St. Patricks Day!
Segway Napa
http://www.segwaynapa.com/
segwaynapa@aol.com



we are now on YouTube - just do a search for segway napa

Segway into the Season of Giving!

November left Napa with a wind storm which resulted in downed trees, power outages - and shops losing out on the big weekend after Thanksgiving spending spree. Luckily it only lasted until 4 pm. Good thing too, since the parade started at 5!

Segway Napa participated again in the Light Parade - handing out awesome savings coupons. Did you get one? It expires on December 31, 2009. We do this once a year, during the parade. If you missed out - don't worry - we have various specials going through April.

December has been chilly, getting as low as 21 degrees! Even so, we've had a lot of segway riders braving the cold to see Napa in this unique, fun way. We love our customers - you are truly adventerous!

Something that surprised me - mustard blooming in Carneros! This is the earliest I can remember it blooming! I've seen it often in late December, but not during the first week.

Are you looking for that special unique gift? Consider a Segway Napa Gift Certificate. With our 25% Christmas special (and Hanukkah :) it's a win/win.

December is a time for giving - this year we have received many requests for gift certificates for Christmas presents. Assuming the last order was also a Christmas Gift, I offered cute Christmas stickers to make it festive. The lady laughed and said that would be great, except this was a Hanukkah gift! I couldn't find any Hanukkah stickers :( but hopefully the present will be well received.

Speaking of giving- Small Lots Big Wines is holding their monthly tasting this Sunday (Dec. 13th) at the Rutherford Grange, featuring "Wines That Give Back" - it's a very cool event with some very amazing wines being poured. (like Cloud's Rest) Wineries will be taking wine orders, a portion of profits go to the charity of their choice. There will also be baked goods, art, jewelry and wine swag. And - weather permitting, free segway lessons. So, if you're in the valley and still need some gifts, stop by! 2pm - 6 pm. $15 at the door.

Contact: www.segwaynapa.com, segwaynapa@aol.com, 707-254-9773

3 blokes on Segways; Team Building

Crush Update: Today is probably the wettest days ever in recent memory during crush, we may get as much as 4 inches of rain! Lots of vineyard managers and winemakers hurried to get the fruit off the vine this past weekend - the brix was not yet what they were hoping for. The aftermath of Typhoon Melor that hit Japan last week is wreaking havoc!

3 Blokes on Segways
I was getting ready for one tour when I received a call from someone wanting a Yountville tour the next morning. He wanted to come by the shop to check things out. Well, we don’t have a shop. Like many Segway businesses – we are mobile and bring the Segways to where you want to go!
What I liked was how he phrased this – we’re just three blokes who want to ride Segways – can you give us a private tour, we shouldn’t be around other people– we want to taste wine! After some discussion I decided to take them to the Verismo tasting room to start.

Austin was great – he poured 4 delicious wines, told how the Stella label was named after the family dog, and was willing to pour other wines upon request. After a great stop - we were on our way. We rode through some vineyards – my blokes were definitely on the wild side! I felt like a mom telling them to be careful, don’t scare the cars, go slow around people. Like many boys, they didn’t listen. So I took them on some roads less traveled. One bloke – he was late 40’s I think, just went crazy – even on turtle mode he was zipping around – he laughed almost the entire time!
Our next stop was at a boutique winery that allows you to do hand punch downs. Hopper Creek is just the most unique experience. They got to chat with Winemaker Joseph inside the winery.

I know, I sound like a broken record – but if you want to get up close and personal to the grapes during crush – the Segway Yountville Tour is a MUST DO! They have two nice patios where you can enjoy watching the grapes ripen, our Dan’s vegetable garden grow. The dogs that hang there are in the Vineyard Dog books. The blokes really loved getting their hands stained, and winemaker Barry hung around to answer a lot of technical questions. All in all, I’d say it was a great tour!

Glide Your Way to Team Building!
So many companies are doing Team Building to get their employees to bond, to hone leadership skills, and to make, well, a team.

Segway Napa has jumped on that band wagon! At first we tried “leading your partner by blindfold” - that was disastrous! Then we tried an obstacle course. That was ok, but hey, who wants to waste time on a Segway going back and forth at the park. We finally realized that segwaying together through the beautiful countryside, visiting a winery – relaxing with wine and cheese – was really enough for the team building experience. Some from our recent team told us it was the best team building they’d ever done! And they do it often! Put a feather in my cap “)

Do you belong to a company or organization that does team building?

Suggest Segway Napa for your next adventure!

Small Lots Big Wines - Segway Napa Historty Article

Segway Napa does the history article for Small Lots Big Wines.

These two photos are teasers - to learn more, click on this link

http://napa.smalllotsbigwines.com/napa-history/urban-legends

Our Beyond Wine Tour of Historic Downtown Napa is jam packed with quirky, fun, facts!

Visit our website at www.segwaynapa.com

Summer Family Fun with Segway Napa!

Although June usually means summer weather - not so this year in the Napa Valley, at least not yet. We've had rain and thunder showers - cool mornings, overcast, breezy - people are digging through their clothes to find some winter gear! April and May had some temps over 100, we've been lucky this month to see anything over 70. My Aunt Polly said she went through Markleeville two days ago and got caught in a snow storm! In June! In California!

(TIP: you can click on the pictures to see a larger size, just remember to click the back button when you are done)

Usually summer brings hot weather - always summer brings families. Remember that song - "School's Out For Summer!" - here's a YouTube from the 70's with the Muppets! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWABJzHrGww

But I digress - what I want to say is - in celebration of families - Segway Napa is offering our SUMMER SPECIAL - all tours 1/2 off for kids *12-17 yrs old (*or at least 85lbs). We're very pro-family at Segway Napa - All our kids pitch in to help with the business.

Some of said kids probably have not been happy with the overcast cool days - but the grapes have been very happy with the cool mornings. Bud break is over, pollination is over - all that's left now is to grow. The grapes are getting to be about the size of a baby pea . Here are some pictures to show how much they have grown since last month!

We hope too see you soon!

Segway Napa

June calendar for downtown Napa:

Every Wednesday night- Art and wine at the Napa Mill

Every Thursday night- Chef's Market in Downtown Napa (1st Street)

Every Friday night - 3 bands live at the Veterans Park (Main and Third Street)

June 27th - outdoor movie - Shrek at the Veterans Park

St. Helena: 1st Friday of the month- May-October - Cheers! St. Helena

April/May Blog

April/May Blog











April showers bring May flowers- so the rhyme goes. In Napa, April was full of showers! May continued with rain during the first week. This is ok for the vines. Speaking of vines = we are now in what is termed Bud Break.

Various levels of budding going on around the valley. (aren't those tiny grapes just too cute! click on the picture to see a bigger view, just remember to click you back button or you'll close out the blog.)









After the mustard and fava were plowed under, beautiful lupin dotted the hills and is absolutely gorgeous! Right now the purple lupin has given way to the yellow, but I don't have a picture of that - - yet!


Our second Concierge Day was a huge success. Thank-you! to all who participated. We glided around the wetlands trail by the Napa River - learned what the bums Bivouac was, and saw the 6th largest solar panel in the US (well, it was 6th when it was built!)
Next one will be in Yountville.










May is a beautiful month to segway in Napa Valley- with all the rain we've had, our hills will stay green at least until the end of the month. Unless we get another crazy hot spell like we did in April- 103 reported in some spots of the Napa Valley.

EXTREME SEGWAY - We had our first qualifying Mount St. Helena tour. Yeah! A recently engaged couple (congrats to S & T!) braved the mountain together - and an old farmer. Ok, well, the old farmer was my dad - but you should've seen how excited he was that someone finally was going up, he's been waiting since December.



Small Lot Wine Tours, one of our sponsors, is undergoing some remodeling. They will now be called, Small Lots, Big Wines - your key to boutique wineries. Looks like a good change - they will start to offer guided tours to the boutique wineries - guess they got a lot of requests for those. Anyway, we highly recommend going to their website and signing up for their newsletter http://smalllotsbigwines.com . They have done a tremendous amount of research into the smaller wineries in the Napa Valley - in order to be on the site, the winery has to be 10,000 cases or less! Definitely worth checking out.

Another new sponsor - please welcome Shelleys-Style.com - Shelley is a local artist with many talents. She sells her tiles at Robert Mondavi Winery, and hopefully soon some other places.