On Monday, the historical Napa Valley winegrowing elite gathered on the second floor of The Culinary Institute of America to talk, mostly, about people who weren't there.

“None of the winemaking is going to walk down that Rombauer road,” said Jon Bonné, by way of introducing a tasting and discussion of California Chardonnays at Bluxome Street Winery in SoMa on Monday afternoon. His comment was met with giggles and guffaws from the audience who were mostly wine industry professionals because, well, Rombauer has become the brunt of every California Chardonnay joke; the emblematic “oaky, buttery,” style that had many who considered their palates too refined for residual sugar, begging for “ABC” or “Anything but Chardonnay” for years.

At the third-annual Truffle Festival held over the long weekend in Napa Valley, the American Truffle Company, an international research and for-profit cultivation company based in San Mateo, proposed that Napa isn’t just a great place to grow grapes, it’s good for truffles as well.

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