California Vacation - Day 4 - Napa Valley

Our last day on the West Coast was spent in Wine Country and we wouldn't have ended our short getaway any other way. The first stop on our tour was Castello di Amorosa. We did the self guided tour where you basically just walk around and check out the castle. The tour included 5 tastings.  

The entrance of the Castle

The Courtyard

View from the Castle looking out
 

After the tour we headed to the tasting room and got to it! The best part of this tasting was that you got to pick which wines you wanted to taste. So we all picked different wines and tasted each others. We did like a lot of the wines but since this was our first stop, we didn't buy anything. We took notes on what we liked and do plan on ordering a few bottles of the ones we really enjoyed!

Our first wine tasting!

 After our tasting at the Castle we headed to lunch. We had lunch at the CIA Greystone. Having lunch at The Culinary Institute of America was a great experience. The location is beautiful, the views are amazing, and the food was incredible! The menu there on Sunday is a set menu where you pick from a set of items for each course. I actually liked this a lot because I didn't spend time being indecisive about what I wanted and it made me try something that maybe I never would have given a chance.  

The CIA & Greystone Restaurant

View from lunch

After lunch, our next stop was at Grgich Hills. Our friends absolutely love this wine and were really looking forward to us trying it. It was good! My favorite was their Pinot Noir. Mmmmmm. Yum! The set up of the tasting room was nice and we even got to keep our wine glass!

After that we headed to Mumm Napa. None of us realized how busy this place was and that reservations are recommended on the weekend. Their views are beautiful from the tasting patio and they were very nice; just packed. Since they were so busy, we just took a couple pictures and then continued on our way.

 

After our failed attempt at Mumm, we just started stopping at random wineries that looked cool. We would do the tasting, and then head to another winery. We probably hit 5 more wineries before they all started to close for the evening.

 

Altogether we ended up buying 4 bottles of wine and have notes on a few that we want to have shipped in the future. We didn't want to buy too much because we didn't want to deal with having to carry it on the plane or check it.

Our first trip to Wine Country and California in general was a complete success. The west coast is beautiful and we can't wait to go back. Next time, we are definitely taking our little man and will make our trip more family oriented. But we are glad our first trip was adults only so we could do a day wine tasting. Definitely worth it!