I was able to set up a lot of winery tours through my job, which turned out to be really nice for the most part. Our first stop was Silverado Winery, which was absolutely gorgeous, and in a very rural, isolated part of the Valley.
For lunch we stopped at Gott's Roadside and got burgers (veggie for me) and milkshakes. And wine, obviously.
In general, we spent our mornings of this trip visiting wineries, and our afternoons hiking or exploring the area. The first day, we went to Skyline Wilderness Park and ended up doing about a 5 1/2 mile hike, the first three miles of which were straight uphill. It was challenging! But beautiful.
The next day we started off with a tour and tasting at Beaulieu Winery, which focused a lot on the history of the Valley. Our tour guide seemed a little Xanaxy but it was still interesting.
Beaulieu uses 100-year-old redwood tanks for storing its wine.
After the tour we went to Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen for lunch.
The highlight was the campfire pie - even split three ways it was plenty!
We worked off our lunch at Westwood Hills Park, which someone had told us was less challenging. The hills were less consistent, but were much steeper!
The vines in Napa were just starting to bud.
We were proud of his self-portrait at the top of the hill! We had to balance my iPhone on a rock.
Our last morning in Napa, we drove to the Northern end of the Valley to Trinchero Family Winery. They own Sutter Home, but also sell quite a few other higher quality wines. They have a gorgeous facility at the winery dedicated solely to educating and entertaining industry people. We got a private tour and tasting, which turned out to be one of the absolute highlights of the trip.
We waited in this hospitality area for a while. Super fancy.
They gave us tea!
The views from Trinchero were gorgeous. Napa was overall much prettier than I expected.
It freaks me out how much my sister and I look alike in this picture.
After Trinchero we found a little restaurant in downtown St. Helena to grab some lunch. Our hotel had given us free wine for liking their facebook page and the restaurant had no corkage fee, so we brought it along. It was about what you'd expect for Hilton Garden Inn Cabernet Sauvignon.
Trinchero also put us up for free the last night - we stayed in the cottage house at the Sutter Home Inn.
Hillary was not too pleased with her rollaway bed, but they took really great care of us, plying us with free wine and a great cheese & fruit plate, and then late night cookies when we came home from dinner looking for dessert.
Farewell, California! Next stop: Puerto Rico 2014?
