Napa Wine Tour

I LOVE this area! But, as my grandaughter says, "but, I don't want to marry it." hee hee

We'v only visited here once before, just enough to know we wanted to come back and see more!

So, our morning began when John, our "driver" picked us up.  Yes, we decided if we were going to hit MANY wineries, we'd better have someone else do the driving.








This is going to be alright!




This was the best of all of the wineries we tasted at so, I decided to feature it.  This was Francis Ford Coppolas place (he and family still live on the property) This is the chataue they built for the winery.  If this is what his winery looks like, I can't imagine how wonderful his home is!

So this is the tasting room/gift shop.  We were lucky to be here during the holidays to see all the decorations.  This had some of the most beautiful items to buy....

That is....if you don't mind paying $160.00 for a glass!

The highlight of this place was this staircase. It took the best craftsmen he could find over a year to build just this!

We wandered into this tasting room/gift shop only to find that it's a "private members club"
Oh well....It was great for the moment! ha! ha!

On the tour, we got to see some bottles of wine (notice how dusty?) that dated back to the 60's.

Here is a wine named after his daughter Sofie.  She was raised right in town here, and graduated from the local high school.

This is the car (TUCKER) that was used in one of his movies.
It goes from 0 to 60 in something like 3 seconds....







They had built the most awesome tunnels to keep their wine in. It was built right into the hillside. This kept wines at a consistant temperature year round.  A technique that is becoming very popular with most vineyards.          Notice the brand "CASK"?  This turned out to be the best wine (Or so we thought) and we purchased some.

This vineyard was built or merged in the early days from a Captain Neibaum (and wife Susan) thus the reason for the diamond in the window with the ship in one corner and the facemasks depicting the movie industry that FFCoppola was involved in.  The stained glass in this place is valued at over 2 million.

So, we stumbled upon a little coffee shop inside the building, and they did tastings there too!  We happened to like the lady working it, and ended up chatting with her a while.  She let us taste THE MOST EXPENSIVE wine they had there. Called the RUBICON.  This is actually the name of their vineyard too.

She also gave us a tasting or pairing with some of their chocolate sauce.  MY OH MY...they blended together beautifully.  I've always had difficulty with pairing wines, but when you get a good pairing?  Wow, it balances out each taste without any afterward bite.

As you can see....we thoroughly enjoyed it.....Don't worry, I didn't lick the sample cup, I wouldn't embarrass you like that.....Ok, maybe just a little.

When we were done, and buzzed, it was nice to call "JOHN" and he picked us up at the door, and onto other vineyards!

Oh,....what a day. Only thing wrong is...I'm here in CA. and it's COLD!  What's up with that?