Thursday, May 31, 2012

California Vacation Part 3: Napa Valley

Our second full day in San Francisco was our winery tour of Napa Valley. We arrived at the marketplace at 8:00am to meet our tour. We needed a quick breakfast, so we got an egg sandwich on a croissant and cappuccinos at a nearby place. Once we met up with our tour group, we piled onto a bus and made our way out to Napa.

On our way, we crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped for pictures. It was morning, so it was pretty gray, very windy, and where we stopped was NOT the best view. (Luckily, we stopped on the other side on the way back home, so I have better pictures later)
Our first stop was V. Sattui Winery, the ONLY winery in Napa that has its own marketplace. This was my favorite stop of the day. We tried 14 different wines here between the two of us and we were certainly feeling happy by the end of tasting.
Coincidentally, the person standing next to us at our tasting, and a part of our tour for the day, was also from New York and lived about 20 minutes away from us! We had a great time getting to know our new friend, Jan, and ended up ordering some wine with him to split the cost of shipping! After our tasting we needed fooood and luckily, this place had a ton of options. Look at all that cheese!
 This was one of the best sandwiches I had of the trip: Chicken Pesto panini
 Tomato, Mozzarella panini

 Desssertttsss...we didn't try any of these though
Next stop was Franciscan Esate winery.
Our third stop was Whitehall Lane Winery and Vineyards. This was my least favorite, mostly because the woman who led the tour was really snotty, and kept putting down the other wineries we went to. She thought she was funny...but she wasn't. They had a cool barrel room though!

Our last stop was Andretti Winery, owned by Mario Andretti himself. This was my second favorite vineyard of the day. It had such a beautiful, calm, European feel to it.
Our new friend, Jan!
I passed OUT on our drive back to San Francisco, so when I woke up, I was surprised to see we were approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. We were supposed to catch a ferry back to the city, which would take us under the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, we got stuck in some major Mother's Day traffic and missed the last ferry boat! So, we had to drive back into town. The only good thing about this was we were able to stop on the other side of the bridge for some MUCH better views.
We arrived back tired, a little hungover, hungry, had 3 bottles of wine in the mail for us, and a new friend!

For dinner, we stopped at Jack in the Box (because we had already reached our "classy" quota of the day) There, I had a "chicken fajita in a pita" teehee...I giggle every time I say that, and it was actually really good!

And that was our successful day 2 in San Fran!

7 comments:

Heather said...

Wow, what a fun day! I can't wait to head back to Napa and try out more wineries in the area. I haven't been to any of these yet!

Lexi said...

What a fun trip, and your pictures are great!!! What kind of camera do you have???

eliz said...

Ahhhh!
First...I got engaged in the vineyards of the Francescan winery...it was our last stop at our Napa Valley tour...(boooy was I tipsy!!)

Second...I LOOOVED V. Sattui...the Mr. and I brought back 2 wines (2008 Riesling & Moscato) and after sitting in our Fridge for almost 2 years we just drank it on our first week of marriage...

I feel like I can go back to San Fran and Napa for a vacation...not one of those places that once you go you are like eehhhh been there...This is such a perfect anniversary trip!

Unknown said...

How fun is that?! Seeing the bridge and all that wine! haha!

Karen said...

Great pics! Now you make me want to go wine tasting! I love Napa and Sonoma Valleys!! Defintely time to plan a trip west!

jacin {lovely little details} said...

yay!!!!! so glad you enjoyed the trip!!!! v sattui is definitely one of my faves, too :)

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