Napa Valley wine country

We 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.

Saturday 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.

Sunday 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.