Skip to main content

Napa/Sonoma Anniversary Trip

So...it's been a month since we celebrated our first anniversary in Napa and Sonoma California.  I've been a bit of a slacker for sure!  Anyway, one of our bucket list items was to go wine tasting in Napa and we decided to do so while celebrating one year of marriage.

It was lovely y'all.  The weather was perfect and I would highly suggest going in the Fall.  It was after harvest, the wineries weren't so packed you could barely move and the leaves on the vines were breath taking!  We had highs in the 60's almost every day and no rain or fog.  Perfection!

The first part of our trip was dedicated to time together.  We stayed at a lovely cottage in Sonoma through that we found on Trip Advisor.  LOVE that website!  Anyway, rather than go into a trillion details about each winery and each wine, I thought I'd list them out with a couple of pictures from each one. 

Napa Wine Train & Castello di Amorosa:  Day long trip that included a 3 course lunch and winery tour and tasting.  We got this as a package an had a great time!

On the train

View from our car on the train!

Who's in Heaven?  THIS girl.





Chateau Montelena (see the movie, Bottle Shock)...we're now wine club members!  Robert Mondavi Winery...super pretty!  Beringer...a disappointment because they actually don't seem to make their wine like they used to anymore, but our tour guide, Jack, was AMAZING!  He's been there for 30 plus years and was knowledgeable about everything.  Super awesome guy and high recommend meeting him if nothing else!

Gorgeous!



Mondavi had to be one of my favorites as far as the scenery!  Wine was meh, but the vineyard was AWESOME!




Gloria Ferrer...LOVED it!  Great views, great tour and I learned about how one of my favorite bubbly beverages of all time is made.  Super laid back and a ton of fun!  Jacuzzi Family Vineyards (yes...they invented it) was another fun place we read about and decided to visit.  It was pretty and the wines were great! Gundlach Bundschu (gun, lock, bun, shoe) was a complete hidden gem and probably our favorite!  We became members and were blown away by the quality of wines.  They're in their 5th & 6th generation of family owned and operated wine making which isn't too common around there anymore!  Domanie Carneros was really pretty with a great bubbly rose, but the prices were pretty expensive.

The driveway to Gloria Ferrer


Beautiful, no?





Jacuzzi!



Hah....found this guy and had to take a pic!

At Gundlach Bundschu





We decided that Sonoma was our favorite place of the two.  It was more laid back and we found a couple of real gems that we just stumbled upon.  We realized that 4 days was not enough to even begin to put a dent in what California has to offer when it comes to wine tasting. Our plan was to not have a plan, get in the car and go and even though we didn't have a set itinerary (NOT like me at all), I was glad we played it by ear because we wouldn't have found some of the wineries we did.  I sort of wish that we had done a bit more research before going because we would have tried to visit a couple other valleys while we there to try some other varietals.  Oh well, I guess we're just going to have to go back!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Goodbye.

 “I don’t know if I should congratulate you or console you.” - Craig “How about both?” - Me This was a conversation in our kitchen earlier this week. After a year and a half of weekly therapy, I had my last session with my therapist Tuesday. Not because I was over it or because it wasn’t working or because he retired. Nope. Because we got to a place where we could both say I’ve got the tools I need to move on. I have to say that there is no timeline for therapy and every situation is unique. I moved on from intensive therapy with my therapist because that it was worked for ME. I am certainly no expert and I have a feeling this isn’t the end of my therapy forever, but I do know that my experience with the right person allowed me to heal in ways I literally never thought possible. And it gave me the experience of a healthy “goodbye”. I was never prepared for that, so when we set an end date (not-so-coincidentally my Nanna’s birthday), it was hard to process. No one talks about

November 19th

There's apparently something about November 19th and changes in my life... 2 years ago: moving out of the ex's house 1 year ago: announcing that I was making the big move to beautiful Colorado Today: planning my next big adventure! After 2 years of major life changes and constant adjustment, I'm finally feeling like a settled human being. So, I've decided that 2018 is going to be the year I push myself physically and mentally. 2 half marathons are on the schedule along with the most exciting part: a multi day bike adventure with an assisted athlete here in Colorado in support of The Kyle Pease Foundation !!  I've learned enough about myself that I will not agree to push myself hard physically for any length of time unless there is another person who is behind the WHY. Doing this in partnership with another athlete who necessarily wouldn't be able to otherwise, is enough to get my ass off my couch and get it done! Details are still being worke

Daughter.

When you're estranged from not one, but basically both parents, the heaviness of that can still be palpable. Most days, most weeks, and months even, it's fine. I've learned to navigate questions like, "Where do your parents live?" or the weird feeling in my gut when someone says, "Oh, my mom sent me this from this favorite place of mine." I've learned how to adjust to Mother's and Father's Days by staying off of social media and doing something that makes me happy like getting out into nature. Some of these times are better than others. Here's the thing: whether or not the choice to go no contact with the two people who were supposed to show you all the basis of love was good or not, is incredibly difficult. Because social media is what it is, yesterday was apparently "International Daughters Day". It didn't bother me so much yesterday, but this morning wasn't off to a great start and for some reason, I felt agitated. I