After a long 4th of July weekend at the Lake we baby gated the puppies in the kitchen, packed the boy off to camp and hopped a plane to California, just the hubby and myself. What a great idea that was! We arrived in Oakland, CA and discovered that Oakland is an ugly city so we quickly drove out of the city to Napa Valley. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast that we found by chance on the Internet, 1801 first. It was right there in Napa Valley. It was a wonderful old home, upon arrival and stepping out of the car the fragrance of flowers filled the air, it was a perfect beginning to a celebration of our 20th year of marriage. If you ever go to Napa Valley, I would recommend a stay at this charming B&B. We were completely spoiled! We were greeted by Maggie with a small cheese and cracker hors d' oeuvres and a glass of sparkling wine from Chandon. I had requested a bottle of wine in our cottage for our arrival so they had set up a chilled bottle of Chardonnay from Cuvaison Winery along with some delicious Truffles made by their house chef. Every morning we would arrive in the main house for breakfast and were served a breadbasket with two choices of home made breads, croissants or small muffins, a fruit dish from smoothies to baked apples or fresh pears with vanilla sauce. The main courses were gourmet dishes prepared by their house chef and I can honestly say probably the best breakfasts I have ever had. In the evenings they would host a wine and hors d’ oeuvres hour and we would get together with the hostess and the other guest staying at the B&B. The hostess, Maggie and Tamara were very pleasant and always full of suggestions for tours and wineries or places to visit or eat. You felt as if you were staying at a friend’s home. We enjoyed the company of the other guests and we each shared our days adventures and able to get even more wonderful ideas for places to visit. Our first day we rented a Harley Davidson Road Glide motorcycle and ventured out on our own to discover the wine country. We began by traveling up the Silverado Trail. Our first winery was Duckhorn Winery. It was a pleasant vineyard with; you guessed it, Duck Décor. Our second winery was the Frank Family Vineyards and I was not impressed by this winery at all, it was very small, almost too small. There were two other groups of 4 each already at the very small tasting bar and so ourselves and the other group of 3 that arrived with us were not able to have time to discuss the wines with the pourers. Beringer Winery made up for the Frank Family Vineyards, truly people, Beringer does make other wines than White Zinfandel. Here we did a small three wine tasting paired with a small cheese board and enjoyed the company of some very nice people from Florida. After that we took a guided tour of the caves and did a tasting of Beringer’s reserve wines while seated in a room in the caves. The story of the room was that it was where the wine maker and his friends used for their private gambling; it was also a room they used in the movie A Walk In The Clouds. This was a nice seated tasting between the pourer and her assistant and only six guests. We not only tasted good wine but also got a lot of education about the process of making wine. They even did a barrel tasting for us so that we could taste the unblended version of wine. Beringer is a must visit. Our last wine tasting was none other than Chandon, a sparkling wine maker (by the way they make still wines as well, but we went for the sparkling experience). This winery has wonderful gardens filled with art by Richard Botto, you don’t know who Richard Botto is, and I didn’t either. His art is steel and rock, and it is wonderful! I posted a photo of myself sitting in one of my favorite creations, his rock mushrooms. The winery and the tasting room was filled with many other art pieces more on the abstract side, but I love that kind of art so it was a great place to have spent time. We really would have liked to spend more time at Beringer and Chandon to view their gardens, but it was very hot and being on the motorcycle as fun as it was it made us spend more time in the coolness of the caves and in the tasting room. That evening we enjoyed a very nice dress up dinner at Cole’s Chop House. It was our nice dinner out and it was delicious! Day two, after another gourmet breakfast, we headed to the coast, on the motorcycle. We arrived at Bodega Bay and went north from there to Goat Rock Beach (photos are included). From there we traveled along the Russian River and enjoyed lunch at a quaint little place called Cape Fear Restaurant. We spent some time hiking through the Armstrong Woods, looking at the Redwood Trees. After that we traveled back to our little cottage, home away from home. After the hors d’ oeuvres hour we had dinner at a hamburger place called Taylor’s Refresher. This is a great little place to eat the atmosphere is old drive in feel where you can get a burger and shake, or a burger and a glass of wine. Next door is the Oxbow market where they have lots of specialty shops for foods, and spices, cheese and wine. Day Three we used to visit a few more wineries. We started at Cuvaison for a quick cave tour and tasting; nothing close to the personal attention or friendly atmosphere we received from the pourer at Beringer. However the wine is wonderful and we purchased an artistic bottle of the Chardonnay. It will be hard to break this bottle open because of the artwork on the bottle, but the wine would be worth it. Second we debated on visiting Sterling Vineyards because we could see the building that is set atop a hill surrounded by the grape vines, but decided to check out the Castello Di Amorosa. The couple we tasted with at Beringer told us great things about this winery and so we were intrigued enough to search it out. The entrance isn’t much when you first turn in but as you move through the gates and around a corner and up a hill surrounded by grape vines you suddenly see the Castle, yes a full, fledged Castle. It is beautiful. We missed the tour and the next one would have caused us to miss our 3:00 appointment so we opted to do the Reserve Tasting. We did spend time walking around the castle and it is spectacular! It took the owner 4 years just to complete the underground tunnels and caves, it has a courtyard and one of the towers is eve made to appear as if the castle has damage from an attack, very medieval. We were suppose to be able to pick 5 wines each to taste, and the pourers ended up letting us taste every wine they had, which was about 20 wines. The tasting room was in a lower level room that was cool made entirely of bricks. The arches made the room. We spent a couple of hours here with very fun and personable pourers ending our stay with only 4 bottles of wine. From there we had to push it to make our appointment that Tamara from the B&B had pulled some strings to get us. The night before two other couples at the B&B had told us of their visit to Jessup Cellars and we asked Tamara to make us an appointment as well. This was our exclusive tasting and tour. Grant met us at the wine mixing room and walked us around the state of the art facility, where they store barrels, mix the wines and bottle them. We enjoyed this so much and ended up having the opportunity in meeting the wine maker Mark Jessup. We came away with a bottle of their premier wine Table for Four, Excellent red wine. The unfortunate part of that visit was Grant poured very full glasses of wine, not only one Merlot but two different years in order for us to taste the difference in the wines from year to year. Again this was a very educational and personal experience, but we ended our tour a little light headed to say the least. We left Napa Valley feeling revived and just as in love, if not more, as we were the day we were married 20 years ago. The motorcycle just made the trip so much more than it would have been in a car and the wine tasting was interesting and we discovered that we enjoy many different types of wine. And now we are home and the boy is back from camp, and the puppies have been released from the kitchen and our normal everyday life has resumed. So we are left with the photos of our trip to remind us of such a wonderful time. I hope you enjoy our photos!