DAY TWENTY ONE
Wine Tour!
For Day Twenty-One, we booked a trip to four vineyards in the Napa Valley. Initially we were apprehensive about joining a formal tour — especially since we were being transported in a 40 seater coach — but we had a fantastic guide who made everyone feel welcome and the coach itself provided a perfect opportunity for a nap on the ride home after a few ‘tastings’.
First stop was the Castello di Amorosa. Modelled on a 13th century Tuscan castle, it had a slight feel of a Disneyland castle with its attempts to recreate an ‘authentic’ European wine experience but once we had let our cynicism subside, it was actually a really beautiful location to start the tour.
Before our visit, we had thought that our preference was for dry wine — but we soon discovered that we actually preferred the sweet wines. At the Castello we particularly enjoyed the late harvest Gewürztraminer so even though we had decided in advance to focus on the tastings and avoid buying anything, we relented and ended up buying a bottle for later in the trip.
Next stop was the V. Sattui Winery and it was clear why this place regularly wins ‘Winery of the Year’ awards. The wine tasting was fun and welcoming with a man behind the bar who was as happy to chat about Game of Thrones as about the various (amazing) wines he recommended. We wanted to buy quite a few bottles but we were able to resist temptation and pick up just one — the Moscato Frizzante. With limited funds and limited time before we would have to leave for home, we decided that we would only pick up two bottles that day — but take detailed notes on all the tastings for the next time we visit.
Also, even though this day was really all about the wine, we had a great lunch at V. Sattui with its deli offering a more genuine Mediterranean experience than the ‘Tuscan’ castle we visited earlier.
Our third stop on the tour was the Whitehall Lane winery — a smaller more intimate location that didn’t quite live up to the quality of the earlier wineries but did offer a fun ‘behind the scenes’ tour that showed us their winemaking facilities. By this point in the day we were pleasantly tipsy and enjoyed seeing the various stages of the process.
By the time we had arrived at the fourth location, the Andretti Winery (set up by racing driver Mario Andretti), we had been drinking wine all day so we decided to miss the tour and just sit in the sunshine sipping our wine.
Soon enough it was time to leave and we got back in the coach to catch our ferry back to San Francisco.
After the effects of the wine started to subside, we decided to go for a wander around the Mission district near our apartment. There was some great street art and wall murals all around the area and it made us want to move to San Francisco — although Cai wasn’t so convinced by the weather, especially after all the sunshine we had enjoyed in Napa Valley.
And what better way to end the day than with a trip to Mission Pie — a local culinary institution that specialises in tasty pot pies. We decided that, rather than eating in, we would take the pies back to our apartment and set up Netflix as we still had a few episodes of The Good Wife to watch before bed!
