eatingRD.com Food. Fitness. Nutrition. Life!

After Chris and I had a nice recovery day, it was time to hit up the wineries and do some marathon tasting.  We are in Napa, right?! I really didn’t have that much alcohol for the last 4 months with training, so I planned to take it easy and hopefully not offend anyone by pouring  some in the provided buckets after tasting.

Chris and I decided to splurge and reserved a town car for the day so we wouldn’t have to worry about drinking and driving.  The driver was also a family friend and it was nice to have someone to chat with and show us around. Our first stop was at Pine Ridge Winery.  We made a stop here on our last trip to Napa about 4 years ago and really enjoyed it.  Their wines have a bold and luscious character that we enjoy.  

Once we sampled our ‘breakfast wine’, in the tasting room, we headed out on our tour.  Nothing like sampling wines at 10 am in the morning!

The tour guide was great and down to earth.

It’s really amazing to me all that goes into wine making, from the different soil, root stock, trellis type, care, storage, production, and on and on.  It’s really neat to think what one bottle of wine went through to get to your table.

Many of the wineries have roses surrounding the grapes because diseases and buggies will usually show up on the roses before the grapes.

This time of year the little grapes are just flowering now and pretty soon they will turn into luscious grapes, full of concentrated juice ready to be made into wine.  Because it’s been a bit colder this time of year with more rain and of course more wind than they are used to, the grapes are at risk for shattering.  This is when the wind and such can blow the pollen off the flowers.  Because grapes are self-pollinators this can be detrimental to fruit production.

We got to peruse through their production area.

And into the dark, damp caves 🙂

This was their 100% cab, which still had a bit to go in the barrel.  Tastes much different than the final product, with a much more raw, fruity flavor.

They have a great area in their caves where they have tastings and parties for club members.  This is a piece of art by Dale Chihuly, who also designed the beautiful blown glass in the Bellagio Hotel.

Wouldn’t that be fun?!

Then we got to sample some cheese and yes, more wine.  There is just something about cheese that goes so well with rich reds.  My favorite cheese for fruity reds is aged gouda.

We made our way out of the caves and sampled more of their wines.  I think you can see where this day is going, eh?

And because we always seem to enjoy their selections and style, we decided to become club members!!  That was definitely a first, but we are looking forward to our first delivery and possibly making it back up for one of their special events 🙂  I also had to buy a bottle of their Onyx, which is primarily Malbec.  mmmm chocolate-y notes.

We could have probably stayed there all day, but it was time to forge on to the next!!

Which included . . .

This is our absolute favorite Merlot.  They sure had some good samples, which included several Pinot Noirs and their ’01 Merlot which tasted like rich and luscious butta’.

After 2 stops, it was time for lunch!  We decided to do a quick stop at Taylor’s Refresher which is quite the popular place.  I guess they technically have the new name Gott’s Roadside, but they are still known as Taylor’s.

They have lots of unique burgers, fries and shakes.

It was chilly and rainy outside, but it was still busy and we all huddled under the space heaters 🙂

I decided on the herbed turkey burger with cheddar and apple/onion chutney.  It was delish!

And of course I couldn’t resist sharing some sweet tater fries.

After lunch we had to make a stop at this cute little shop that we found on our last trip.  They make their own olive oil and have various Italian cheeses, meats and groceries.

I couldn’t resist putting my card on the wall of cards 🙂

We opted for a little slice of fontina to nibble + a bottle of olive oil to take home.

Next stop was Honig, which we had never been to before.

We sampled a few of their whites and reds.  They weren’t our favorite style, but their sauv blanc was really nice.

I commend you if you are still with me at this point! lol We actually made it to only one more stop. . .

Jessop Cellars was also a new one in our repertoire and we were really impressed with their tasting.  I think it is one of the best free ones we’ve been to.

The lady was really nice and you get a nice sample of cheeses, olives, nuts, crackers and even dark chocolate to sample the ports with.  Her recs for particular samples with the wines were spot on and really made the experience even that better.

We had a great time here, but I think they want to let you sample as many as you like to get you a bit tipsy so that you’ll buy even more! lol well . . . we somehow became club members here too and walked away with 6 bottles, yikes!

After a little down time, it was time for dinner!  More wine and food, yes!

We stopped at Bistro Don Giovanni which is one of our favorite stops.

We shared a salad which turned out a bit small for my taste, but it was good and peppery with the arugula and radicchio.  Oh yes, couldn’t get away with this one since it’s in the picture (ha!). I also had a glass of sangiovese to go along with dinner, yes more wine.

I got the spinach tagliatelle with duck ragu and sage.  Boy this was rich and amazing!

Chris had the risotto with fava beans, morels and chicken.  This was very rich too.  mm yea think there’s a bit of cream in there?

And if that’s not enough we ordered the chocolate mousse cake with a side scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Oh dear, I think someone needs to ride another 100 miles! lol

We had a great time in Napa and enjoyed every indulgent moment.  We don’t get to do this often so it was very special 🙂 I hate to say it but we actually walked away with 15 bottles of wine total!  But we are going to be giving some away as gifts and I’m sure there will be some kind of wine party in our future 🙂 I think we for sure need to invest in a small wine fridge for sure.

Stay tuned for more indulgent foodie pics and another winery stop!  I had to save the last two amazing meals we had for their own post because they were that memorable for us.  I am going to be so sad to go home.

Happy Memorial Day!