Napa Valley

To celebrate Carsten's 60th birthday we all (Carsten, Sheri, Marieke, Alex, Jamie and Austin) travelled to Napa to check out the wine.

Flights to San Francisco were easy and we met up with A+J who flew in from Detroit. Slow drive to Napa through the SF traffic.

Thursday morning we got up super early for a hot air balloon ride over the valley.  This was actually a Christmas present for the kids. It was gorgeous!





We were in the air 1 hour and five minutes, travelled 5 miles and achieved +6400ft altitude. We saw the sun rise over the mountains and flew over the mist coming in from San Francisco Bay.

We were back to the house by 8:00. Good start to the day!

First winery - Trefethen. Very pretty gardens and grounds. Nice wines. A Dry Riesling was a nice surprise. 




Next up - Tres Sabores. This was a very small 100% organic winery. This was a lovely working farm. They grew lavender, pomegranate, etc and had bees, owls and goats.



In between our appointments we are cooking, eating and playing games.

Friday we started with Caymus.
Lovely grounds.


Lovely wines. Our host was Michelle (a dude). He was interesting. Plenty of stories to tell, he recovered nicely from calling Marieke old..... Ask her about that sometime. 

Peju (a recommendation from Cindy Held) was amazing. We had a cool older gentleman named Scott who was like a recording at first until he warmed up to us .... At the end he was singing Carmen to us - he was a Baritone who once sang with the Connecticut Opera. Fantastic!



We ended our day with a lovely dinner at RH Yontville. Alex bumped his head on an indoor tree (that was accompanied by a chandelier).

Saturday we had to get up and moving! You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning! Three stops today!!!

First stop some bubbly at Chandon.


Next up, after some confusion, Stags' Leap Winery (not to be confused with Stag's Leap).

This was a group tour including the 1920s speakeasy in the basement. Met a lovely young couple from Atlanta.


Last stop of the day is Artesa (after Ben & Jerry's ice cream). The views from Artesa were beautiful. The wines were nice too!





Sunday morning started with Faust. Ever heard of a Faustian Pact?



Basically it is a "sell your soul to the devil dilemma". Cool setting with the spooky black house, lovely wines with a snack included.

Hall winery is our second stop.
Gorgeous grounds and strong Cabernet Sauvignon.


Dinner at Long Meadow Ranch was super nice and games afterwards were fun as always!
Monday morning Alex and Marieke headed back home... We missed them but carried on. 

After the shuttle drop off we headed to Joseph Phelps Winery.

The grounds were lovely even with some crop maintenance going on. Sometimes you have to pull the crops and let the fields lay fallow for a couple of years. The wines were lovely and after too many red wines we had a couple of whites in the tasting as well.

Silver Oak is the second (and last) stop for the day.


These guys only do Cabernet and what I would call ," heavy" red blends. Lovely wines. 

We started Tuesday at the Napa Valley farmer's market. A quick bite for breakfast then over to Sonoma Valley for the first time. Sebastiani is our first stop.



This winery has an Italian heritage and has been in business since 1904. They were one of very few wineries permitted to keep making wine during Prohibition. They made Sacramental Wine for the Catholic church.

A drive over the mountains got us back to Napa Valley. It was a very windy road!

Beringer winery is the final tasting stop on this marathon wine week.

Beautiful grounds.

We had a tour of the old caves.



Lovely wines, very smooth. This totally changed my view of Beringer.

For Carsten's birthday Austin and Jamie took us to The French Laundry. This is a three-star Michelin Star Restaurant. 

This meal was an incredible experience from the moment we walked in to the final visit to see the kitchen. Each course was creative, surprising and flavorful. No detail was missed and the pacing was perfect.

The French Laundry was called "the best restaurant in the world, period" in 2005 by restaurateur and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. Such a wonderful experience to share with Austin and Jamie for Carsten's birthday - there were seven desserts - not to choose from, we got all seven - he was in heaven!

What an end to a great week!

Next blog will feature hiking etc in Yosemite. Stay tuned!

Sheri and Carsten 














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