We started our vacation with a tour through Napa Valley wine country. After catching the shuttle back to the airport and picking up the rental car we headed West and North along the West coast of the San Francisco peninsula. This route took us though some of the city, including the Golden Gate park. We discovered the path to the Golden Gate bridge is surprisingly difficult to get to.
The short trip crossing the bridge was breathtaking. The views were somewhat limited by the sides and the fog, but it was very cool to look back and see the city skyline, as well as just the beauty of the bridge itself.
On the other side of the bridge we headed north on the freeway. We stopped for some groceries at a SafeWay - very cool store, they should build one in Marshall. This route took us through Petaluma, home to the TWIT Cottage, which I wasn't able to spot.
For the details of the trip up, you can follow our path at: http://www.goldenhaven.com/regions/san_francisco/san_francisco_directions.html
The route up to Calistoga was very scenic - but a little bit of a nerve wracking drive. Kelly handled it much better than me. We drove along the petrified forest for part of the way, and descended a hill with a great view of Mount St. Helena.
Our first winery was Zahtila, a relatively young winery that also grows some of its grapes. The gentleman behind the bar was very helpful, explaining a lot of information to us. We tasted a few different cabs, and although I don't like cab, I could taste the differences. One uniqueness to this wine tasting was the blind tastes - we didn't know which wines we were tasting until after we told him our favorites, we usually picked the more pricey wines. The average price per bottle there was $65.
We headed back into Calistoga for some light browsing in the many shops and found a nice little place for lunch. A delicious lobster bisque fit the ticket for both of us.
We headed south along HWY 29 to the Castello Di Amorosa winery. This was an amazing place to visit. Built on the vineyard grounds is a medieval replica castle. We opted for the self guided tour, visiting 2 of the 8 levels of the castle, including a chapel, knights chamber and the tasting room. We tried several wines here and learned more about one of our favorites types of wine - Moscato, which is a dessert wine. The website for the winery is: http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/
We then continued down the road again stopping next at Sutter Home just south of St. Helena. This was a nice little winery/shop, very low key. Sutter Home wines are widely distributed, and value priced. They also offered free tasting, which was customized for us. We tried a White Merlot - which I loved! I'm a white Zin type of wino, so the merlot was a nice find. He also let us sample their version of the Moscato, and one just called "Red", which is red with a cab undertone, but the lightness of a white zin. This was a very nice meet in the middle for Kelly and my tastes. We each picked a four pack to bring home and bottle for the hotel room.
The last winery stop was the Napa Cellar/Folie A Deux, which is a part of Sutter Homes winery. This was a neat shop, but the staff was not very friendly. We each tried three wines, and didn't really love any. I did try a Zin, which was very full bodied and dry. I did not like - so I'll stay with the white zin, it is a big difference. We did however try a spicy peanut sauce that begged to come home with us for Kelly's homemade pork dumplings.
We both were in good spirits from our day together in the car, and didn't even mind the heavy traffic back to the hotel too much. We did decide to stop in Napa for dinner, at an Italian restaurant. It was recently painted, so the smell was offensive at first, but wasn't as noticeable by the time we received our food. Kelly had a pasta dish with lamb shoulder, artichokes and olives and I tried the linguine Lina, which was a sausage pasta dish. Both were wonderful and we split a tiramisu for dessert. Fabulous!
The heavy traffic slowed our return. It was very heavy as we headed south on the I-80 crossing to the main land, then driving down along the bay coast toward Oakland. We then crossed the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. One neat note about the Bay Bridge, it goes through Treasure Island and on the other side of the island becomes a double-decker suspension bridge. We then continued back to the hotel via the 101 S. I did create a little unexpected detour when the GPS was directing us back to the point Kelly had marked to see how the I-80 turned before the bridge. We were able to pull off, correct, reroute and make it back to the hotel without further incident.
Back at the hotel we enjoyed some wine and rest. Day two was spent in the San Francisco city.
