We knew we’d be stopping in San Francisco while on the West Coast, and while camping, the outdoors/hiking, and not showering don’t really pair well with vineyards and wine tasting, we knew we wouldn’t be able to pass up on spending some time in Napa Valley if we were going to be this close. We found a spot to camp in Napa State Park in Calistoga, which would put us within ten minutes of acres and acres of vineyards and more wineries to choose from than we have the time, or money, for. The tricky thing with Napa is that there are so many beautiful vineyards to choose from and it’s really hard not to want to spend time at as many of them as possible. But realistically, with most tastings starting at $40 a person (and that’s definitely the lower end for a general tasting room, not the fancy reserve stuff), and us being unemployed since end of July, it’s hard for us to justify. Plus, we have Murph with us and despite Napa being ridiculously dog-friendly, it’s not really fair to drag him around for days while we get boozed up on over-priced wine (we do that enough to him at breweries). So we reluctantly narrowed it down based on which wineries promoted themselves as being the most welcoming to pups, those that didn’t require advance reservations, and those with the prettiest vineyards…you know that someone isn’t a wine connoisseur when that’s the criteria they use to determine what wine they’ll be paying to taste. Derek and I aren’t exactly fancy, and are more like $15 Cabernet drinkers at home (for special occasions), so we’re easy to please.
We ended up stopping for tastings at V. Sattui, Clos Du Val, and the Regusci Winery along the Silverado Trail. The first tasting was probably our favorite and more of a private tasting of their reserve wines. We got to the vineyard early, and a guy stopped to ask us about Murphy as we were walking in and was telling us about the dog he was getting. Come to find out he’s the guy who runs all their reserve wine tastings, and he told us to come in for one, which worked out great because we later saw the main tasting room slammed with tourists and big groups of girls on what I assume are bachelorette trips. Anyway, the wine was great…I couldn’t tell you if I tried what the names or the types of wine we had. I do remember one that was a desert wine that was kind of like a dark whiskey (it might’ve been an Angelica?)…but it was wine. We were both fans of it. Oh and there was the one made from wines from 1885.
After the tasting, we bought some snacks at their onsight deli and found a picnic table outside. A big group on a family vacation asked to share our table with us and the next thing we know they are sharing their food with us and left us with a bottle of their wine. Oh and they gave us their contact info in case we needed a place to stay and some people to show them around when we were in their neck of the woods (if anyone is keeping track, Derek has been given five sets of phone numbers since we’ve been on this trip).
The other two wineries we stopped at were beautiful too, with great wine, and equally as welcoming to Murph. Regusci Winery was another standout and their grounds and vineyards aren’t too shabby either.
Outside of the sprawling, rolling hills of vineyards as far as you can see, the beautiful sunny, blue skies and perfect wine-tasting weather, and delicious wine, this is what surprised me most about Napa. Here we are at all these high-end wineries, and we have a our 95 pound, slobbering dog laying at our feet (like a good boy), being fed dog treats by the people who work there, in between them topping up our glasses and spewing out history of the region and interesting facts about each vineyard. I guess I never thought that a wine trip to Napa would be one that you could bring your dog along for, but hey, if there is one thing we’ve learned in the last couple months, it’s that there aren’t many things you can’t do with your dog, which for people like us is pretty awesome.
After a full day of drinking wine in the sun (they aren’t stingy on their pours in Napa, and at more than one place we were given extra glasses and/or tastings), we stopped at the Oxpo Market in downtown Napa, with all locally sourced food, for a bite to eat and a couple bevvies before heading to San Fran. And it’s a good thing we didn’t try to do more tastings than we did, because I may have quite possibly been over served as it was. And little did I know then that over the next few days, we would be on our way to a culinary and wine tour of the Bay area with our friends Claire and Alex.
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