Tori and Bryan: August 2015

We arrived in Napa on Tuesday afternoon and did a quick check in at our Hotel and then headed to our first tour.

For those of you (like us) who have never been to wine country, I highly recommend Mondavi first. I like to think of them as the Pfizer or Merck of vineyards. They do it "by the book" and are very professional and give a good 360 degree tour. They do a nice wine tasting that is more educational than wine tasting, but it was perfect to get us in the mood for vineyards.

Robert Mondavi

Cakebread Cellars

We had a great morning at Cakebread. It is one of my family's favorites and the grounds were beautiful.

Lunch and Other Stops

We had lunch at the cafe at this stunning, super exclusive hotel. It sits on top of the mountain and the views are probably the best in Napa.

We had a couple of hours to kill before our next scheduled tour, so we stopped in Rutherford Hill Winery.

...and this little establishment.

We drove around the grounds at Beringer, simply because they were so picturesque.

I have to give a shout out to all of the LOLs (little old ladies) out there who love their White Zinfandel. My Granny was a proud drinker of white zin and I will just say that it got completely demolished at our wedding by some of the Tallassee LOLs! This sign just made me smile.

Del Dotto

Nest stop, Del Dotto for a cave tour. Del Dotto only sells his wines to wine club members and high end restaurants, so we had never heard of it.

Bryan was super pumped about the cave tour and he really enjoyed tasting the wines right out of the barrel.

Rombauer

Our last stop of the day was at Rombauer. It is a favorite of my Dads so we were just going to pop in for a quick visit.

When we got to the top of the hill, they were closing, but the owner's wife invited us in for a quick tasting. Well, these ladies (and eventually Mr. Rombauer) just really were so inviting and had us come sip wine with them on their deck overlooking the valley. They were just so nice-even giving us 3 bottles of wine. Needless to say, it was supposed to be a quick visit, that ended up lasting about an hour and a half. It was one of my favorites parts of the trip.

Hall

Thursday morning, we went to Hall. We didn't have this tour planned but we met so many people on our trip who just had great things to say about this winery.

So, we decided to check it out, and it really was a good decision. They grounds were very unique and beautiful. I was "wined" out at this point and it was way too early to drink, but Bryan really enjoyed their wine.

Other stops and meals

We drove down to Sonoma to check out another one of our family favorites, Acacia. The drive to Sonoma was SO beautiful.

On our way back to Napa, we stopped in this YUMMY restaurant, Bistro Don Giovanni.

Later on Thursday,

We made a HUGE blunder and scheduled a tour at Stags' Leap....NOT Stag's Leap.

WARNING: There are two Stags Leaps.

1. Stag's Leap Cellars - the one we have all heard of, order in restaurants, very beautiful grounds, etc.

2. Stags' Leap Winery -- biggest waste of our time. Outdoor tour in the 100 degree heat. Awful tour guide that only wanted to talk about the history of this old house...quite frankly...no one cared! Most of us on the tour were mad because we thought we were going on the other tour. She wanted us to taste the wines outside in the blazing sun...and everyone told her they were going to leave...so she took us inside in this tiny room...it was the pits.

Long story short...it was bad and we were pissed. But, we got over it and went back to the hotel and got a massage.

So....moving on.

Many people schedule hot air balloon rides in Napa. Well, our last morning we got up early to get ready to head to the airport and heard them...and opened our balcony door and saw this.

Pretty Cool.

But you still wouldn't get me in one of those things.