Napa Part 3: Day Two Adventure

This is the final post from our Napa trip, I finally got around to writing it!

We woke up Sunday morning without much of a plan for the day, thinking we might go drive to some wineries and then maybe just head home.  But the bf started thinking and got us heading out the door with a crazy itinerary in hand.

We started the day back at the oxbow public market to buy the cheese from the night before and to see if there was anything else we needed/wanted.  We bought the cheese, then came across the chocolate vendor who makes the Ceja chocolate wine sauce.  We had wanted to get something for Trish (the awesome pourer at Mason) and thought a cute little bottle of wine chocolate sauce would be great.  She was so excited to see us again, and loved the gift!

We then said goodbye to downtown Napa and headed north to hit a few wineries, the first was Frank Family.  The bf had some of this wine at the Pasadena wine festival and that was our main reason for visiting.  The place wasn't super friendly or personal, you had to pay as soon as you walk in and then you go to different stations for each type of wine.  We split the reserve tasting since I wanted to try the sparkling wines and he wanted the reserve reds.  The sparkling wines left much to be desired (and were pretty expensive) so we moved onto the reds.  The reds were good, but it was in a very small room with lots of people and only one pourer crammed into the corner.  A weird experience after all the fun downtown rooms we tasted in the previous day.  Off to our next stop, Chateau Montelena!

For those of you who don't know, Chateau Montelena pretty much put Napa on the map in the 1970s.  I highly recommend the movie Bottle Shock for a quick and fun history lesson (if you remember, we also tried the wine from another winery featured in the movie, Gustavo Thrace, the previous day).  We were a little concerned that the tasting would be similar to Frank Family and not very personal, luckily we were wrong!

The grounds and building were gorgeous, see above, and we decided if it looked too crowded inside we could leave.  Pretty soon after we walked in someone motioned us to head to a back room where they had more tasting areas and we had a pourer just for us!  The tasting fee was expensive ($20) but we split it and felt like we got our money's worth since we got to try bottles that sold for $150.  The wine was great but mostly out of our price range although we did walk out of there with a copy of Bottle Shock signed by Bo Barrett!

Now for the real adventure we headed to the next valley over, Sonoma.  The last time we went wine tasting in Sonoma we LOVED it, and we realized it wasn't too far out of the way and we could get back home just as easy as if we had stayed in the Napa valley.  First pit stop was at the Dry Creek General Store for some lunch.  The sandwiches here are wonderful but the wait can be long, in the end it was worth it and we enjoyed our sandwiches.

The next stop was Dry Creek Olive Oil since the bf is a member of their club.  We got to try all the current releases they have and since he gets a 20% discount we bought a bottle of some cara cara orange infused olive oil that wasn't part of the shipment he got.  The person there recommended we drizzle it over goat cheese which we have since done and it was delicious! The bf also wanted to get a new shirt since his was lost in the great flood of 2010/2011 (a pipe burst in his wall).  When they couldn't find a shirt in his size they gave him the size bigger for free!

The last stop was our favorite winery from our last trip, Hook and Ladder.  I was a little worried that we were thinking too highly of it since it was one of our last stops last time.  It lived up to all our expectations, and since we liked it so much we decided to join their wine club (it's the first one we joined so its kind of a big deal).  We bought three bottles, got a cute reusable carrying case (that we were told fits two bottles and two wine glasses) and were on our way home.

That concluded our Napa adventure, glad I finally got it all written (only 4 weeks late :)

Napa Part 2: Dowtown Wine

One of the reason we went to Napa was because they have a downtown Napa tasting card.  For $25 you can taste wine for 10 cents at 12 different tasting rooms all within walking distance of each other.  When we talked to the innkeeper about this he said no, the card isn't worth it since he had a bunch of 2 for 1 tastings and many places would comp your tasting fee if you buy a bottle.  So we decided not to buy the cards, although we heard different opinions about it throughout the day.  We took a look at the tasting cards the innkeeper gave us gave us and mapped out where we wanted to go.

We started at the Vintner's Collective, which was recommended by our B&B but we didn't have a tasting card, luckily they gave us a 2 for 1 price anyway.  This was a collection of many different smaller wineries, most pricey (above $50 a bottle, yeah we're kinda cheap).  It was nice getting to try all these wines but it was our most expensive tasting at $25 per person which unfortunately wouldn't have been applied had we bought a bottle. 

We tried to go to Twenty Rows next, but when we got there found out they were open by appointment only (which was contradictory to their tasting card, and the open sign in the window) we tried calling and knocking but no luck, so we moved on.

The next stop couldn't have been any different from the first. Mason was up next, and we went into a cheery room with a great wine pourer named Trish.  First bonus is that they have complimentary tastings, second bonus was when we realized how cheap their wine was and how much we were enjoying it.  They specialize in Sauvingnon Blancs, which aren't my favorite and the bf really doesn't like them, but all the ones we tried here were great and fruity and we ended up buying three bottles.  They also had some fun reds and we took a bottle home of their Merlot, which is something that we have never done.  Fun fact about Merlot from the movie Sideways: the main character bashes Merlot throughout the movie and the sales of Merlot apparently suffered from it, however the wine that he has been saving for a special occasion and ends up drinking at the end is actually 70% Merlot!  Trish said it was a fun inside joke in the wine community.  Our second stop of the day and we already have four bottles, but Trish sad she'd bring them back to our b&b for us and that if we buy bottles other places to drop them off with her and she'd deliver all of them.  We <3 Trish!!

Next up was Taste which had two different wineries, Wasterstone and Mahoney.  We came to this tasting room two years ago after a lunch on the wine train that Mahoney had paired wines with and had given us free tasting passes.  The last time we came was really fun and one of the main pourers was a huge Michigan fan and was wearing a Big House t-shirt so we were very excited to return.  Sadly this place didn't live up to our expectations.  The pourers were boring and didn't engage us in conversation. We did still end up buy two bottles because we liked the wine.  This was another place where they didn't apply the tasting fee to the bottles (we did have a two for one) but they were having a 20% discount for Valentine's day so that made up for it, I guess.  The service there was still boring.

We headed next door to Gustavo Thrace.  We found out from a previous tasting that it is Gustavo from the movie Bottle Shock!  They shared a tasting room with Toolbox and we got to pick two wines from each one to taste.  All was good but most of the wines were just a little out of our price range, except the Third Bottle.  The Third Bottle wine is meant to be your third bottle at dinner after you've drunk your more expensive, fancy wine, however we think its a great first bottle and ended up buying one.  The tasting fee here was applied to the purchase of the bottle, which is awesome.

At this point we took a break for a snack, see this post.

After our snack we went across the street to Uncorked.  We walked in and the place was super busy, but we had a complimentary tasting pass for two so we figured it'd be ok to wait.  They were very kind to us while we were waiting and eventually we got to try some wine.  The pourers here were very friendly and made for a fun atmosphere.  Ahnfeldt and Carducci share this tasting room so we got to try some of both.  We ended up buying one bottle here before we left.

Our last stop before heading back to our B&B for their wine tasting was at Ceja.  One of the best things about this tasting was they had iPads for you to rate all the wines you try and leave comments.  We also had a delicious cheese plate here.  As we were making our purchase (of course we couldn't leave without buying a bottle) we got to try their chocolate cabernet sauce, omg so good!  So we ended up with a bottle of that as well.

That concludes our downtown Napa wine tasting.  It was awesome being able to walk everywhere and we had a great time at all of the tasting rooms.  By the end of the day we had purchased 9 bottles of wine and one bottle of chocolate sauce!

Napa Part 1: Downtown Accommodations and Food

We spent the last weekend in Napa for a Valentine's/Birthday for the bf extravaganza!  There is so much to talk about so I'll split it up into a three different sections, accommodations and food, wine, and our adventure on the second day.  We decided to try downtown Napa for a change, I had read a good article in Via magazine about it and heard other good things.  We like the idea that you can walk to a bunch of tasting rooms and not have to worry about driving.

I made the decision to stay at a Bed and Breakfast since it seemed like there were many available and I've always liked the idea.  We stayed at the Old World Inn, which was wonderful.  There are two locations so of course we went to the wrong one first, luckily the correct one was only about a block away.  The Innkeeper gave us a quick tour of the place, there was always coffee out (pre-measured french press!) and they had fresh cookies at 3:30, wine and appetizers at 5:30, and chocolates after 9!  We then were shown to our room which was super cute, although it was probably the smallest room there it was enough room for us and very cozy.  We had a fireplace and a small patio! This card was waiting for us on the bed:

We got ourselves settled in and headed out for a day of wine tasting (more on that later). 

Sometime in the afternoon we realized it was probably a good idea to have something to eat and I wanted to check out Oxbow.  It was very fun inside and we had some great, unique, tacos at Casa.  I had grilled garlic citrus prawns with corn relish, shaved cabbage salad, avocado crema, garlic aioli and cilantro.  The bf had skirt steak with grilled onions, blue cheese, avocado, jalapeños, garlic aioli, cilantro & salsa picante.

I felt like I wanted to spend more time there but we were on a schedule for wine tasting so we headed out.  At one of our final wine stops we decided to get a cheese plate, it was a very good decision.

We loved the middle cheese so much I took a picture of the name on the menu and asked where we could buy it, luckily we could buy it at Oxbow, and planned to do that the next day!

After all the wine we headed back to our b&b for their wine tasting and to get ready for dinner.  We never made it to dinner, I blame the super comfortable bed but the bf blamed all the wine we (or I) had.  Not too big of a deal missing dinner though, because we knew there was a big breakfast in store for us the next morning. 

Breakfast was great, maybe a little too sweet for some but still great.  It started with fresh fruit and orange juice, then the main course was caramel french toast, yummy.

I would've loved something a little more savory to complement it like some nice crunchy bacon, but still enjoyed it quite a bit!  At this point we said goodbye to our awesome b&b and headed out on our Day 2 adventure, more on that later as well!