California Wine Country

After a really quick, less than 24 hour trip visiting Monterey, Carmel and Pacific Grove, Will and I made our way towards Napa bright and early on Tuesday. The drive wasn’t bad at all and the scenery was really nice! We drove past lots of farms, roadside stands selling fruits and veggies and the closer we got, the more wineries we started to see.

Our first to-do was to pick up lunch from Soda Canyon Store which had a deli, gift items, groceries, an espresso bar and more to take with us to Clos Du Val for a picnic. After eating we had time to spare so we walked through the vineyards and did a little exploring before heading to Charles Krug in St. Helena for a barrel tasting. Getting to taste wine directly from the barrel and learning how barrel aging influences the wines aromas, flavors and texture was really interesting! There was no one else in our group so Will and I were able to take our time sipping and asking questions.  

After leaving Charles Krug, we were getting pretty tired from our busy day but decided to make one last stop by Silver Oak before heading to our Airbnb and calling it a day. I will say that if we had had additional time and weren’t so tired we would have loved the chance to go by Inglenook which I hear is amazingggg!

The next morning I was torn between going to Bouchon Bakery to get monkey bread (my mouth is watering just thinking about it), or going to Model Bakery and my sweet hubs was up for the idea of going to BOTH! When on vacation, calories don’t count friends! After our morning fix, we headed to Hall Winery for an educational tasting learning how to properly swirl, smell and taste wine.

After a few hours at Hall, we decided to switch things up and do some window shopping in Napa since the weather was so beautiful, before heading to Gundlach Bundschu for another tasting. The people at Gundlach are so friendly, the tasting room inviting and the property spacious and fun to explore! That night we went to Bistro Don Giovanni and decided to lay low (hence we watched every episode of Stranger Things) since we had another big day the next morning...aka what I had been looking forward to for days! Breakfast at The Fremont Diner!!