Napa Valley

"As you grow older, you'll find that you enjoy talking to strangers far more than to your friends." -Joy Williams

SO first I have to give Sadie a huge shoutout on planning our trip to Napa Valley! She had our days planned out perfectly! She chose all of the wineries we went to and booked all of the tours. We decided to go about 2 weeks before and with us all working full time jobs, we really didn’t have a lot of time to plan. I booked hotel and the rental car and everything else Sadie did. Courtney’s fiance was working outside of San Francisco so she planned to spend Saturday in Napa with us and she would be with Blake on Sunday. We flew in to San Francisco Friday night and met up at the airport. Our flights landed pretty close together but I was able to go get the car before Sadie and Courtney landed. From there we drove up to our hotel which was about an hour from the airport. We stayed in Napa at the Best Western Inn at the Vines. I thought it was a good location because it was fairly close to everywhere we wanted to go. On Saturday morning, our first tour was at Artesa Winery. This one was my favorite! The tour was awesome and the wines were really good too. The tour we did was Single Vineyard Tasting on the Terrace, and it was just for the 3 of us, which completely spoiled us for the rest of the trip. Our tour guide, Andrew, was awesome, really personable, and handled 3 girls at a wine tasting at 10am considerably well! We toured the winery and saw the barrel rooms where the wine is kept to age. That was really cool to see because I hadn’t been to a large winery like Artesa before. Once we saw how the wine was made and the production process of it all, we hopped on a golf cart and headed out to a picnic table in the middle of the vines. We tasted a couple more wines and enjoyed a charcuterie plate (which was complimentary for booking in advance!) and just kind of hung out. He showed us all of the different leaves and picked some grapes for us to try right off of the vine! Once we finished our sipping and snacking he brought us back up to the tasting room and brought us an order form for if we wanted to buy any bottles. We each bought a bottle from here because the entire experience was so great, how could we not? It was here that I learned that Sadie literally had an itinerary for us, which were printed and had each time that we were supposed to at which place. The only thing our itinerary was missing was being laminated. Our next tour was at Castello di Amorosa, but it wasn’t until 4, so we had some time to kill. We decided that we would head in the general direction of our next tour and just stop at a winery somewhere in the middle for another tasting.

This is when we stumbled upon Robert Sinskey Vineyards. I really enjoyed the vibe here, mainly because we only did a tasting and found some chairs outside on their patio for us to just hang out. We did the flight of 5 different wines and a small snack plate for $40. This vineyard was on the side of a mountain so we overlooked the valley so it made for an incredible view. After this we headed to Castello di Amorosa where we did the Diamond Estate Tour and Reserve Wine tasting for $40. This place was absolutely beautiful! This was a very unique vineyard in many ways- all of the building materials were brought in from Italy, so it didn’t feel like we were in California. It looks just like a castle and the grounds are beautiful and they even had some chickens and goats walking around. I definitely felt like I was somewhere in Italy which was a really cool vibe! It was built to look like a castle but it was not ever used as one. It was built to be a winery. I was shocked to know this because it all seemed SO real! There was a chapel, torture chamber, a large dining room, it really had it all. The plot twist about the tour at Castello di Amorosa was that we weren’t able to taste the wines throughout the tour, the tasting was until the very end. Considering this was our 3rd winery of the day, we started to get reaaally tired pretty quickly. What was different about this tour was they aged their wine in barrels in underground caves. They do this because of the consistent temperature for the wines to age in. We also got to try a Cabernet Sauvignon straight from one of the barrels while it was aging. Wine is definitely better once it has aged! After the tour we went into a tasting room and finally got to try the wines. Castello di Amorosa doesn’t sell their wines to anywhere so the only place you can get their wine is directly from them. After their tasting, I understand why. They were ok wines, but most of their profit is from their tours. This was our last one of the day so after we headed back to our hotel and Courtney met up with Blake and Sadie and I headed to dinner. We went to Pasta Prego in Downtown Napa and the name says it all! We both got pasta and both were really good!! Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish and since we were staying in a hotel we had to leave it behind.

On Sunday our first stop was Grgich Wine Estates. We were both really excited about this one because they offer a grape stomping experience! They are the only place in Napa Valley that offers this. You can’t make reservations for grape stomping so we decided to get up early and try to beat the crowd. I highly recommend Grgich Wine Estates because 1, you can stomp grapes, 2, they have really good wines, and 3, YOU CANNOT BEAT THE PRICE HERE! For $50 you can stomp grapes, you get to taste 5 wines, you get a plastic wine cup to take home with you, AND you get a super cute t-shirt! After you finish stomping the grapes, you step out and you put your footprints on the t-shirt. What a cute idea! We didn’t do a tour here, but we really enjoyed their wines. The next time I go back to Napa, I’ll definitely plan on doing a tour at Grgich Wine Estates. They had a really nice tasting room and they even had a raffle to guess how many wine corks were in a wine bottle. Fingers crossed one of us win!

(sorry Sadie, your face was WAY too funny to not share)

After we finished up at Grgich, we had a tour at Rutherford Hill Winery. On the way to Rutherford Hill, we stopped along the side of the road for a photo op. This was fun because we were in a rural area and it was just us running through the vines (literally). We got to Rutherford a little early so we hung out there for a bit with a glass of wine to pass the time. The tour we chose here was the Cave Tour and Barrel Tasting. I really liked the rustic look of Rutherford, the building was beautiful! The entire property was beautiful honestly. I feel like I’ve said that about every one, but it’s hard to find a bad view in Napa. This winery also kept their barrels in caves and we got to taste premature Cabernet Sauvignon here too. Again, you can definitely taste the difference! It’s really not that good and it has a very sour taste. After we finished at Rutherford Hill we decided to grab lunch somewhere. We only had a small breakfast and all the wine wasn’t settling well. We decided on Rutherford Grill, which was just right down the road. It was busy so the only place we could find a seat was at the bar. Their burgers were good and their cornbread was fresh and warm!

After we finished up lunch, we decided to go hang around downtown Napa, something we hadn’t done other than dinner at Pasta Prego. Napa actually has a really cute downtown area and we just browsed around, checked out different shops, they had a cute little river that went through the middle of downtown and a nearby park area- which was perfect for a little photoshoot ;) Afterwards we grabbed dinner across from the park at Velo Pizzeria. All of the food that we had in Napa was really good, and I learned that while I was there, Napa isn’t only known for their wine but also their food. With that being said, you REALLY can’t go wrong on where you decide to eat. Overall, Napa can be an affordable trip if you want it to be. The most expensive thing was (obviously) our hotel. But if you have flexibility with being able to go during the week or a weekend, I would imagine it would be cheaper during the week. The most expensive winery we went to was $60, and that was Artesa, which was my favorite!! Well worth the money for a good time.

Our flights weren’t until Monday afternoon so we got up early on Monday to head back into San Francisco to try and make sure we beat traffic and so that we could have a little time to frolic around the city. We took the route from Napa that put us going back into the city over the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve been to San Francisco a handful of times before, so I knew a couple of places to show them around. We stopped at a lookout spot and took some pictures with the bridge, and then we went down to Lombard Street. Lombard Street is really fun to drive down due to all of the curves, and although I had seen Lombard Street, I had never actually driven down it! After that we went to The Painted Ladies (another first for me!) and hung out in the park there. The Painted Ladies are really cool because aside from the houses alone being unique, behind the houses is the skyline of the city. Being we were kind of pushed for time, we didn’t spend too long at any of these places so we grabbed lunch at Diamond Cafe and headed to the airport to catch our flights. Like I said earlier, this was a very affordable trip. I feel like people always put a really big price tag on the word Napa Valley. So if the opportunity presents itself and you can afford to get yourself there and find a place to stay, go for it! If you don’t, you’ll be WINEing about it later ;)

xo

charli