West Coast Adventure {Day 4}

Day 4 – Napa, CA

Day 4 of our west coast adventure was wine tour day. All wine, all day. Thankfully we got to sleep in a little bit so we were perfectly rested for it. Coffee in bed instead of on the road? Yes please!

We booked our Napa Valley wine tour through Platypus Tours, and I highly recommend them. The tour is pretty spendy and doesn’t include wine tastings, but the tour guides are knowledgeable and fun, transportation is included, all you can drink water is included (trust me, you’re gonna need it), and lunch is served to you on one of the winery properties. Also, depending where you visit you can get discounted tastings because you’re with the tour group.

First on our tour was Whitehall Lane, in St. Helena. Here we tasted grapes right off the vine and toured the large barrel room. I think their Merlot was my favorite of what we tried, and I bought a bottle to take home.

Casa Nuestra was second on the itinerary and it was our favorite stop of the day for wine, atmosphere, and the dog they had onsite. (MAX!!! We might be a tad dog-obsessed.) When we arrived we were greeted with a glass of wine (of course) from a very friendly wine rep with a thick New Orleans accent. He told us all about the property and wines, as well as the owner’s obsession with Elvis who had filmed a movie on the Casa Nuestra property. (How cool!) We visited the tiny barrel room and tasted wine straight out of the barrel while our tour guide set up a lunch picnic for us outside. It was a great meal of sandwiches, quinoa salad, fruit, and dessert. My favorite Casa Nuestra wines were probably the dry reisling and the tinto. I took a bottle of the dry reisling home with me.

Just a side note: four wineries in one day is a lot of wine. Having all you can drink water on our bus was key, lemmetellyou.

On our way to our third stop our tour guide pulled off to a side road so we could get out and see and touch a cork tree! (As in, a tree used for making wine corks.) Then, it was to the Hill Family Estate tasting room in Yountville. A wine representative did a tasting with us, and after we hung out in the shop. There was a lot of random memorabilia, including one of the judge’s chairs from the Voice!

Between our third and forth winery, we were given a cheese and cracker plate to pass around the bus. Our last winery of the day was Clos Du Val in Napa. This place was beautiful. We went inside to the tasting counter where a very friendly wine rep met us to begin. We tasted wine, laughed a lot, and played a who-knows-who-better game in pairs. (Merry and I totally won, although no one was keeping score.)

When we got back to our hotel after the wine tour, we had dinner on the brain. We walked down the street a short ways from our hotel to Fume Bistro. The creme brulee trio we split for dessert was the highlight of our meal.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel, totally wiped from our busy day. It was a great day – I’m so glad to finally say I’ve been wine tasting in Napa Valley:)

Whitehall Lane, St. Helena, CA