Friday, February 22, 2008

Napa Valley wine country

Wine Tasting in the Napa ValleyWe spent a second consecutive weekend out of town. A long time and dear friend of E’s (his first boss) flew out to the west coast to visit us for the holiday weekend. We took her to Napa valley for a weekend of wine tasting and touring. We stayed a two bedroom suite with fireplace at Silverado Resort. The place is large and beautiful and is spread around a golf course. Alas, none of us golf.

Wine tasting at Graeser Winery in the Napa ValleySaturday afternoon we started with an idyllic cruise along the Napa River on an 11 passenger, electric-motor boat. We brought along our lunch and a bottle of wine. It was an interesting tour to learn about the area’s wetlands, riverfront commerce and historical floods. We then toured one winery on our own, The Hess Collection. The winery has an extensive collection of modern art works.

Glasses lined up for wine tasting in the Napa ValleySunday we did an all day wine tour with a company called Platypus Tours. This was one of the highlights of the weekend. The vineyards were awash in yellow from the blooming mustard plants. The tour is done with a small van that picks you at your place. The group usually ranges in size from 8 to 12 people. The guide customizes the tour to the requests and interests of the guests. Their emphasis is on smaller, family wineries and historic wineries. They avoid the crowed and snobby places. The tour also includes a picnic lunch at one of the wineries. I highly recommend them. We visited five wineries (Graeser Winery, Failla Wines, August Briggs Winery, Summers Estate Wines, Rutherford Grove Wines). We ended up buying two cases of wine.

Monday was spent in the town of Sonoma. We visited its historic square plaza and mission. We ate lunch and did some retail therapy there before heading home.

We also ate at two highly regarded restaurants: Meadowood, and Martini House. Meadowood was by far one of the most amazing meals we had.
The historic Sonoma Square Plaza

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You were in my hometown! I've sat on that bench in the Plaza before. I'm glad you liked it.

Valley's Other Fruit said...

Nice writeup about your trip to the Wine Country! You were in my parts as well...I am a gay blogger in Napa. Just started my blog about finding and connecting with the gay community here.

Http://lgbtnapa.blogspot.com/ if you're interested. Would love it if you could help spread the word. ;)

GuyDads said...

Thanks for the info on the lgbt napa site. I've added it to my blogroll. Napa was fun to visit with a straight friends but I doubt that my partner and I will visit on our own. We perfer to travel to places that are less closted and more open.

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