Mumm's the Last Word for the Mustard Festival

A photo finish and hundreds of pictures.

The dancing had already begun by the time we wandered into Mumm's. The line to the main food table--serving gourmet sausage--seemed to reach into an infinity of darkness, and guests thronged the various tidbit and wine stations. We quickly decided to favor the house's champagne this night, and before long we'd also developed an appreciation for a particular cooked-on-the-spot delicacy consisting of a pancake-like base with salmon on top and a dollop of something creamy.

We seem to remember the music as being provided by a decent band playing those dance standards of the '70s and '80s, and if they didn't exactly play that ditty with the memorable lyrics, "...get down tonight...," they played its varied equivalents. We thought it the most lively of the many Mustard Festival events, leading us to question why that might be. The grand opening at the Culinary Institute of America was just splendid, and we believe more people probably attended, yet the Mumm's party seemed to have a greater mass. But the CIA, with its many venues, disperses the crowd into several rather intimate parties, while at Mumm's everyone was thrown together into one, large partying mob.

The art gallery, however, was a major exception. The Mustard Festival features a photograph competition as one of its activities, and the Mumm's Photo Finish provides the opportunity to display the results. As one might expect, there are lots of pictures of yellow speckled meadows and vineyards from around the Napa Valley and its environs, and at first glance it would appear to be difficult to choose a winner. One could start with the bad entries, removing them from consideration, but even that would leave the majority of pictures in the running.

And they're good by the dozens, offering a great visual record of the annual mustard crop, seen up close or far away, some filling the picture with nothing but yellow blossoms and green stems, others combining the vineyard, barn, hillside, fog or sky in scores of arrangements.

Then we saw our own favorite, and knew exactly why it was so. Sandra Cannon shot the picture, of squarish dimensions, with the upper half of the image comprised of blue sky, punctuated at a near horizon by several eucalyptus trees. It had the requisite mustard yellows, but what really distinguished it was the soft light illuminating the gentle hills of rich, green grass. It was perfectly ethereal, and we don't think we've ever viewed a photographed that better captured the nature of the Carneros region. That it might not have been the Carneros District is irrelevant; it will do.

Oddly enough, however, we wandered onto a property some days later that reminded us strongly of that photograph, and we came to be there by virtue of meeting a woman that night at Mumm's.

She wore a striking blue blazer sans lapels and black, tailored pants, an ensemble that nicely complemented her excellent posture. We feigned astonishment that she would be alone, and used that as an excuse to impose on her. It developed that she was a professional horsewoman, and she ran her own stables, boarding more than 30 animals. She gave riding lessons, rehabilitated retired race horses; she was a veterinary tech as well, and often assisted vets at operations.

Her establishment nestles in the gentle slopes of the old Carneros land grant among the Napa and Sonoma vineyards straddling the county border. The hills undulate down from the lower Mayacamas Mountains, reaching to the northwestern shore of San Pablo Bay, a land of striking emerald greens and heartbreakingly sharp, blue skies in spring, and soft browns and faded baby blues in summer. We got to see the verdant version this day, and it all strongly suggested that lovely scene immortalized by Sandra Cannon.

When the woman's chaperones reappeared, it seemed wise to retreat, and we headed toward the music, where we were fortunate enough to be asked to dance. She was in her early 30s, blonde, wearing a flashy, short black dress with spaghetti straps and fringe; she'd been drinking, as we all had, but she, perhaps, was having more fun than most, revealing a frenzied intensity.

In between turns on the dance floor, we conversed as much as that was possible given the noise, and it turned out that she worked at a particular winery in Oakville, though we don't know in what capacity. She asked how we liked the wine, and, rather thoughtlessly, we replied to the effect that it wasn't bad, though we phrased it in a less sensitive manner. We might have expected someone to demand an explanation, in which case we would have said that it had been several years since we'd drunk it, and frankly did not remember how good it was; but we had no bad memories either.

As with the photographs, our evaluations begin with whether something is bad or dislikable. Once we've transcended that stage, we find that most things professionally done are pretty okay; and once in a while, something extraordinary catches your fancy.

But this woman asked no questions; instead, she started yelling at us, spewing denunciations in the most intemperate manner as she stormed away. It was so extreme it was funny, so out of control we couldn't even feel bad about our insensitivity.

We still pondered our response, however, because it is not good to accidentally provoke people to such emotions.

It occurred to us that if we'd actually said the wine wasn't bad, she still would have been dissatisfied; all she wanted to hear, apparently, was that it was wonderful. We further considered the fact that this winery has changed hands several times since the plant was built, most recently a couple of years ago. It's bearing at least its third name. Though the current owner may have a past in wine, his money comes from one of those run of the mill tech fortunes or somesuch, so we were, ultimately, talking about just another rich guy buying a winery. Given the fairly recent acquisition, it's entirely possible that the new crew hasn't even turned out their own product yet, and they almost surely had not when we tried their wine.

We never established what the woman did at the winery, but she had tasting room written all over her, so we were forced to conclude that she was somewhat oversensitive considering that she may have had nothing to do with producing the wine for a new winery staffed by a new crew that had only relativey recently been making wine together at all. In short, there seems to be no track record to speak of, no tradition of any sort, and taking inordinate pride or insult at this point strikes us as slightly inappropriate.

But we still question our ambiguous words, as one always does after sending somebody screaming into the dark. Even if it is at Mumm's.

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