Napa valley vacation

[NAV8TT]

Going to napa next month. Anyone suggests certain wineries or restaurants. Anything there to do other eat and drink wine.

[eamon]

I just went to a gas station and got sutter lol

[BMW F22]

Oh man there are a ton of things to do there. You can even hit up Sonoma too and expand your possibilities even more. But for now I suppose you should stick to Napa since there are already a lot of things to do. Here are a few places that I've been to and liked.

O'brien Estate- on the outskirt of town but has very good wines. They name their wines after stages of a relationship which is kind of cool. Their tour was also informative. We went during harvest season and had a chance to taste the grapes which was nice.

Robert Mondavi- good informational tour about how wine is made and such. They have good desert wines along with others such as cab and merlot.

V.Sattui- good wines and good BBQ on weekends. As far as I know it's the only winery that can offer food because it started doing so a long time ago. Later on Napa passed a law saying that wineries can't offer food because it would take too much away from local restaurants. It's located in about the center of things (along with Robert Mondavi and a bunch of others).

Castello di Amorosa- cool 13th century castle/winery. You can do a tour of the castle which takes you to the dungeon/torture chamber, etc. and then have wine tasting at the end. Pretty cool place. It's about 10-15 minutes further up from V. Sattui.

Sterling- now I've heard mixed reviews about this place. The cool thing is that it has a tram ride that takes you to the top of a hill where you do the self-guided tour and wine taste. It has a very nice view of the valley. However, the wines didn't taste that good to us. I heard their higher end wines are good but we didn't taste anything that was good so who knows...It's about $25 a person for everything so I expected some good wine. They do give you a small souvenir wine glass at the end.

Darioush Winery- I haven't been to this one but heard it's amazing. It's very elegant and just a treat for the eyes so perhaps you should check it out. Their wines are supposedly good too.

Close by O'brien is Trefethen Winery. It is a humongous winery but we didn't like the wines there. It was...okay...not good. You could get a business card from O'brien and get a 2 for 1 tasting. It's just about 1/4 mile away from O'brien.

There are a ton of other things to do like underground caves/wineries, hot air balloon rides, etc. that you can do. Not sure how long you're staying but the things I listed above should be enough for about 2 days. Don't forget there are many restaurants to check out too.

[Nate2046]

Originally Posted by BMWFB02

Going to napa next month. Anyone suggests certain wineries or restaurants. Anything there to do other eat and drink wine.

We go to Napa every year (7 years running), in fact, we'll be there in 9 days, can't wait.

Wineries (most of these you need to call ahead and make an appt)
-Pride Mountain - you'll thank me for the drive up and the wine is pretty great too
- Spring Mountain - stop here on the way back down from Pride
- Frank Family
- Storybook
- Schramsberg
- Mumm's - This is a great end of day stop, sit out on the patio overlooking vineyard and have a flight
- Viader
- Cade
- Kuleto - most amazing view in all of Napa, save this for the end of your trip

Restaurants (make your reservations now)
- Ad Hoc - only restaurant we go to for dinner every year
- Taylors Refresher (Gott's Roadside) - only restaurant every year for lunch
- Redd
- Solbar
- Farmstead
- Bistro Jeanty
- Rutherford Grille
- Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen

Those are just a few of the highlights that come to mind first. Its all so good, you really can't go wrong. Enjoy!

Oh, one more thing, you may already know this but don't stay in Napa. You want to stay further north in the valley, Yountville, St Helena, Calistoga, etc.

[NAV8TT]

Originally Posted by BMW E90

Oh man there are a ton of things to do there. You can even hit up Sonoma too and expand your possibilities even more. But for now I suppose you should stick to Napa since there are already a lot of things to do. Here are a few places that I've been to and liked.

O'brien Estate- on the outskirt of town but has very good wines. They name their wines after stages of a relationship which is kind of cool. Their tour was also informative. We went during harvest season and had a chance to taste the grapes which was nice.

Robert Mondavi- good informational tour about how wine is made and such. They have good desert wines along with others such as cab and merlot.

V.Sattui- good wines and good BBQ on weekends. As far as I know it's the only winery that can offer food because it started doing so a long time ago. Later on Napa passed a law saying that wineries can't offer food because it would take too much away from local restaurants. It's located in about the center of things (along with Robert Mondavi and a bunch of others).

Castello di Amorosa- cool 13th century castle/winery. You can do a tour of the castle which takes you to the dungeon/torture chamber, etc. and then have wine tasting at the end. Pretty cool place. It's about 10-15 minutes further up from V. Sattui.

Sterling- now I've heard mixed reviews about this place. The cool thing is that it has a tram ride that takes you to the top of a hill where you do the self-guided tour and wine taste. It has a very nice view of the valley. However, the wines didn't taste that good to us. I heard their higher end wines are good but we didn't taste anything that was good so who knows...It's about $25 a person for everything so I expected some good wine. They do give you a small souvenir wine glass at the end.

Darioush Winery- I haven't been to this one but heard it's amazing. It's very elegant and just a treat for the eyes so perhaps you should check it out. Their wines are supposedly good too.

Close by O'brien is Trefethen Winery. It is a humongous winery but we didn't like the wines there. It was...okay...not good. You could get a business card from O'brien and get a 2 for 1 tasting. It's just about 1/4 mile away from O'brien.

There are a ton of other things to do like underground caves/wineries, hot air balloon rides, etc. that you can do. Not sure how long you're staying but the things I listed above should be enough for about 2 days. Don't forget there are many restaurants to check out too.

Thank you

[NAV8TT]

Originally Posted by Nate2046

We go to Napa every year (7 years running), in fact, we'll be there in 9 days, can't wait.

Wineries (most of these you need to call ahead and make an appt)
-Pride Mountain - you'll thank me for the drive up and the wine is pretty great too
- Spring Mountain - stop here on the way back down from Pride
- Frank Family
- Storybook
- Schramsberg
- Mumm's - This is a great end of day stop, sit out on the patio overlooking vineyard and have a flight
- Viader
- Cade
- Kuleto - most amazing view in all of Napa, save this for the end of your trip

Restaurants (make your reservations now)
- Ad Hoc - only restaurant we go to for dinner every year
- Taylors Refresher (Gott's Roadside) - only restaurant every year for lunch
- Redd
- Solbar
- Farmstead
- Bistro Jeanty
- Rutherford Grille
- Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen

Those are just a few of the highlights that come to mind first. Its all so good, you really can't go wrong. Enjoy!

Oh, one more thing, you may already know this but don't stay in Napa. You want to stay further north in the valley, Yountville, St Helena, Calistoga, etc.

Thank you

[vioaltec]

You should do this instead---
http://winetrain.com/

[BMW F22]

Originally Posted by vioaltec

You should do this instead---
http://winetrain.com/

Eh i heard that's a waste of money. It just goes back and forth.