So many new places to see, so little time...: Napa Valley, California -- 1 Year Anniversary: Day 1

Ben and I decided to spend our 1 year anniversary in Napa Valley, California.

We arrived late last night in San Francisco, and drove rental car (a Ford Mustang -- good choice on Ben's part) to our hotel in Napa. We pretty much just went straight to bed when we got to the hotel, since it was 3am GA time. It was pretty neat to drive through San Francisco and see a little bit of the city -- even if it was at night.

Today we started off having breakfast at the hotel. The hotel is overlooking the Napa River, and we decided to eat outdoors. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I love it.

We then took off for Yountville (about 15 min away) to go on the Napa Valley bike tour. Our tour guide was named Paul -- a 65 year old avid cyclist with a great sense of humor and a vast knowledge about Napa Valley and the wine making process. Other members of our group included another couple from Georgia in town for a wedding and an older lady from Las Vegas in town for a wedding as well.

We headed off towards our first destination -- Baldacci Vineyards -- with Paul explaining different aspect of the vineyards along the way. Baldacci Vineyards is a small scale, family-owned vineyard. There, Mike gave us a brief tour of the facility and the "caves" where the keep the barrels of wine. We got to taste several of their wines -- a chardonnay and two of their cabernet sauvignons. They were all pretty good.

Our next stop was Regusci Winery, my favorite winery of the day. The landscaping and architecture of the winery was gorgeous and I absolutely loved their wines. We tasted their chardonnay, zinfandel, merlot (fantastic), principle cabernet sauvignon (my favorite of the day), and angelo's cabernet sauvignon. Here we decided to buy a bottle of the Merlot to share with our parents when we get back to Georgia.

Our lunch stop was at Laird Winery where Robert was our taste guide. He was extremely knowledgable and so nice! He even gave us a complimentary pinot grigio to enjoy with out lunch. Here we tried a pinot grigio (2007 and 2008), chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon. Ben enjoyed the pinot grigio and the chardonnay, so we ended up getting some of their wines as well.

Our last stop of the bike tour was Hopper's Creek Winery. This was probably the most casual tasting of the day. The taste guide, Dan, was drinking a bud light as we walked in and provided us with entertaining stories of the winery and events in Napa. We tried a zinfandel, a merlot rose (very unique-- brought a bottle home to share), cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, merlot, and sauvignon blanc. The winery had a very pleasant porch overlooking the vineyard where we enjoyed a few of the wines.

After the bike wine tour, Ben and I headed north to Calistoga to Castello de Amorosa. It's basically an Italian castle built in Napa Valley by and Italian man named Dario who wanted to recreate his heritage in the form of a midieval castle. The castle was quite impressive to tour, and we also got to do a barrel tasting as well as a formal tasting of their wines. Their wines were pretty good, but nothing that wowed us. Their Rose was fairly pleasant, so we got bottle of that. The views around the castle were breathtaking, making the trip very worthwhile.