Live Blog – Day 7 – Napa Town

May 23rd, 2023

After a massive day yesterday, and a long and hard week, we found ourselves pretty tired and a little bereft of plans and motivation to make any. We drank a lot of wine yesterday and getting straight back on it seemed a poor plan. So we decided to head out and do a bit of exploring. First, we took a look at the free breakfast supp;ied by the Inn. We missed this yesterday as we had a Champagne Breakfast included with the Balloon flight.

As a fairly budget-friendly inn, we did not expect wonders from the breakfast, especially as it was described as a light continental breakfast, and just expected a few muffins, cereal, and maybe toast. Again the Inn totally over-delivered. There were some really excellent cereals on offer, yogurt, fruit, juice, and some amazing oversized pastries that really were to Die for all served with tea and coffee. It was an amazing breakfast for such a small little Inn.

Unsurprisingly, our options were limited by the ever-present morning fog. This dulled the vistas and obscured the views once again. So instead we decided to take the opportunity to head into Napa itself and explore the City.

Napa

When choosing a place to Stay in Napa Valley most people flock towards the obvious choice of Napa. The Adminstive capital of the county and a vibrant and happening city. Calling Napa a City is a bit strong it’s more of a town, and not even a large town at that with a population of less than 80,000 people.

This all makes it a great place to base your stay, but it has a very towny feel about it. It is built up, there is a main street, it’s flat, lined with shops and the hotels in the area are all very corporate and a bit dull. It just does not have that Wine Country feel we imagine when thinking of Napa Valley.

So while we enjoyed our visit to Napa, we were really happy we had made the decision to stay up where all the action is. Not on;y as we just had so many more wineries in short traveling distances, but we also got the real Wine Country feel that was just lacking in Napa.

There was not a lot going on either on our visit, but we felt things were just getting ready for later in the day. Most bars and cafes seemed to be setting up and on the whole, the place had a deserted vibe, but we are sure things pick up once the sun comes out and probably after it goes down as well. But we had wine to drink so once the sun started poking through the gloom we headed back towards St Helena.

Castillio Di Amorosa

Of course, we were in Napa and we could not hold off the wine-drinking forever so we headed back out to hit the wineries, first on the list, the Iconnic Castillio Di Amorosa. If you don’t know much about the Castillio then it’s basically an authentic Medieval Castle…replica.

Dario Sattui, of V.Sattui fame, spent some time traveling Europe and really took a fancy to the ancient medieval castles found dotted all over the continent. As there is simply nothing even remotely that old anywhere in America, when he came t buy some more land to expand his wine empire he just decided he would build his own!

The Castle is really fun to explore but certainly has the feel of a Disney castle about it, and we are really unsure how it would hold up to a real assault. We wandered around the ramparts and explored the Knights Hall thoroughly enjoying the ridiculousness of the place. The best part of the Castle really is the Fantastic views out over Napa Valley.

After exploring the Castle for a while we headed inside for the real reason we came, the Wines. We had a tasting booked, however, the Pass was not accepted here, but we really wanted to visit the Castle. There was a large selection of wines to choose from, including a nice Rose Sparkling, some Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, several excellent Cabinet Sauvignons, and a beautiful Rosata to finish off which was wonderfully sweet.

The Tastin came with a small box of chocolates and was hosted in the Cellars/Dungeons of the Castle, we had an excellent host and really enjoyed the tasting. The wines certainly didn’t stand up to the fantastic Louis M Martini of yesterday, but we had such a blast in the bowels of the castle it was one of our favorite tastings so far.

Beringer

The Next Stop was the Beringer Winery. This is another really stunning Winery, an old Germanic Style house called the Rhine House welcomes you to the grounds. Using the Priority Wine Pass we got a 2-for-1 on a Sip and Stroll tasting that allowed us to wander the grounds enjoying a full glass of whatever wine we had chosen. This was a lovely way to do a tasting and we spent some lovely time in the gardens enjoying the sun.

The Rhine House has now been converted largely to a shop so we were able to see the interior as well as the stunning exterior and grounds. While the Beringer Winery was the least varied, we just chose a Chardonnay and a Cabinet Sauvignon, each as these are basically what we both work up to on the tastings anyway.

Relaxing Evening

Following the tastings we once again simply retired to the inn to enjoy the late afternoon sun by the pool. We were finding Napa to be very relaxing and the perfect way to recover from a hectic few days. For dinner, we headed to a local Mexican Supermarket that did Street food and ate one of the best Burritos we have had in a while.