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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Oh Glorious Napa Valley. Why did we leave you?

Napa Day 1

After a day of rest on our River Boat, we went one block over, had a few crepes, and we were on our way.

No kidding, this was taken on the way into Napa.

First stop was at the Napa Valley visitor’s center. For anyone ever making this trip, if you’re planning on visiting wineries, and doing some tastings, you MUST stop at the Visitor’s Center. They loaded us up with coupons for free tastings, 2 for 1 deals on tastings, and told us where to go pretty much.

The first stop was at the Madonna Estate Winery. This was a wonderful free tasting, where we got introduced to some new wine that we’d never so much as heard of. The tasting was just for us… no-one else was in the tasting room, and man… it was some goooooood stuff.

The next winery was rather interesting. Artesa was located on top of a hill, that had been leveled, the building put in, and then the dirt put back on top.

 

Here’s the view from the front door. Some interesting things to note: They have a full time resident artist. There are miniature waterfalls running down the front stair as railings.

We stopped at Andretti winery… as in Mario Andretti… I really wanted to like the place. We had to pay $15 for a tasting, and I believe with all of my heart that the reason there was a $15 tasting fee was that because after tasting the wines, there is no way that anyone would actually buy a bottle. When we went to the winery, I fully intended to buy a bottle…I mean, it’s Mario Andretti… the man is a legend… But his wine, well, let’s just say that his winning race career doesn’t carry over to his wine career. However, the winery was rather attractive.

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