Napa Valley - Suggestions?

[lhanddds]

Suggested tours Cakebread (reservation needed), Silver Oak, Sterling. Oakville Grocery is great for lunch. We ate at Bouchon for dinner which was nice. Mustard's Grill was nice also. If you pick up some sandwiches at the Oakville Grocery you can drive to Rutherford Hill winery and they have a picnic area that is very nice.

[mws222]

Cakebread does a food and wine pairing later in the week, I can't remember if its Thursday or Friday, but I'd highly recommend that.

[wantonebad]

I forgot to mention my highlight for wineries:

Jarvis: Truly fantastic property, elegant visitors center and cellar tour, GREAT!
Etude: Much improved visitor experience since the Beringer purchase, trouble is the wine isn't as good without Tony Soter try the any pinot you can white or red.
Cakebread: Also a very good visitor experience, the wine has been inconsistent the last decade or so.
Caymus: Great all around, good wine, good tour, good extras.
Chimney Rock: Fun place, if you like Merlot, you like their Cabernet LOL.
Shafer: Great wine, if you like Cabernet, you'll like their Merlot under rated Chardonnay.
Volcanic Hill: Great property, true mountain vistas and old school mountain cabs, great fruit!
Darioush: Really nice modern facility with great wines, Cab gets all the pub, but the Chard is lively.
Chateau Montelena: Touristy but still a must see, along with BV, Modavi and Inglenook, they started it all in CA

*Inglenook is now Coppola, Mondavi is Mondavi without any Mondavi's, and BV reamains the same. Add Beringer, and they are the old guard, you should visit 1/2 or all of them.

Opus: Pompous waste of time, or mayber not... wow what a property though and during the right vintage you can sip their $20 glass of over priced over extracted wine and enjoy it.

Just a few I thought I'd add my opinions to

[masterserg]

Here are a couple of my pictures of the Castello. It is worth it just to tour it. It was built with proper and accurate medieval technique, using authentic materials brought all the way from Europe by specialized architects. It has a moat, a torture chamber, fortified walls, etc.

It is no Disney castle. Seriously beautiful and the views are spectacular. If I remember correctly the wine and host were great as well!

You can read some more here:

http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/His...ing-the-Castle

[00pumpkin]

Great pics!

[descartes]

IMO, Far Niente winery is second to none, both in regard to the wine and the tour experience. http://www.farniente.com/


You must call well in advance for reservations as they only take a limited number of people in for tours each day. It is also somewhat expensive to do the tour ($50 pp), but you are getting very, very expensive wine and lots of it, plus cheese pairings.

As an added bonus, there is a "barn" on the premises which houses Gil Nickel (the founder's) car collection... which is pretty extraordinary.

Re: places to stay, if you are looking to splurge, it's hard to beat Auberge du Soleil. (Runs about $1,400/night on the weekends, more for large suites). If oyu don;t stay there, it's worth going for lunch on the deck which overlooks all of Napa Valey. http://www.aubergedusoleil.com/

[giantsindahouse]

We're local but took a wine tour with Platypus as we didn't want to worry about driving. They picked us up at our hotel and had a great time meeting people from all over the US. Funny story, every male in the group was named Steve so I was an honorary Steve for the day. Had such a great time, we all met for dinner afterwards.

[mws222]

Originally Posted by descartes

IMO, Far Niente winery is second to none, both in regard to the wine and the tour experience. http://www.farniente.com/


You must call well in advance for reservations as they only take a limited number of people in for tours each day. It is also somewhat expensive to do the tour ($50 pp), but you are getting very, very expensive wine and lots of it, plus cheese pairings.

As an added bonus, there is a "barn" on the premises which houses Gil Nickel (the founder's) car collection... which is pretty extraordinary.

I'll second Far Niente, make sure you get added to the wait list if the day you want is already booked as something usually opens up.

[Boopie]

We went twice but it has been several years...I thought the Wine Train was worthwhile, if you enjoy a nice, leisurely ride. It just goes up and down to St. Helena, I believe, with one stop. The purpose is to enjoy a vintage train ride, at a leisurely pace, with good food and fine wine.

We stayed at The Mill (literally, a renovated mill), which was charming.

There were so many great restaurants. You will have a blast!

[00pumpkin]

Less than a month away now. This is where we are staying: http://www.napavalleylodge.com/

Really looking forward to the trip.

[sea-dweller]

Fly into SFO, rent a car and get onto highway 29, that is where most of the wineries are.
Be sure to make hotel reservations in advance. St Helena and Calistoga are some of my favorite towns. California Wine Country is lovely at any time of the year.