Napa Valley with John and Shay

Saturday Marc and I made our first trip (of many....I predict) out to Napa Valley with our good friends Shay and John. We've been looking forward to taking advantage of wine country being so close and this was the first weekend we didn't have plans - so, we decided this should be our first 'road trip' out of the bay area. Wow - that's the best word to describe the gorgeous scenery of rolling hills, green fields and so many beautiful flowers that I just didn't want the day to end. It's almost overwhelming - your eyes don't know where to look because they want to soak it all in...we had SO-MUCH-FUN!

First stop on Saturday morning was at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars...we learned quite a bit at this winery. Found out that Stags Leap is an area of Napa and there are two Stag's Leap wine companies mutually exclusive of each other...the other is Stags' Leap Winery (notice different use of the apostrophe) which we plan to hit on our next trip out.

Stag's Leap Wine Cellars are known for their Cabernet and Chardonnay so we tried out several of their wines and learned a lot about the industry at the same time. Our 'Wine Enthusiast' aka server was awesome. He did a great job of educating us about different grapes and how which grapes are used to create certain flavors, the harvesting process and the history of the Stags Leap area.

Next stop on our adventure - Cakebread Cellars, a favorite winery around the San Fran area. This property was absolutely gorgeous as we drove directly into the rows of grapes to get to the main tasting area. Don't you just love that concentrated look on Marc's face as he tried to back up down a road while cars were speeding past him? Note to driver - don't miss entrance next time... =)

There were two parts of this stop that I enjoyed the most - (1) we got to do our tasting in a cellar with these giant barrels of wine around us... Crazy to learn about how much these barrels are moved around during the aging process and was really neat to be able to stand in the middle of them and take it all in as we were getting guidance from Martha - our favorite 'Wine Enthusiast' of the day!

...and (2) my second favorite thing, the Cakebread property had this gorgeous green and blooming garden that we were able to walk through. They grow many of the vegetables they serve on property in this garden...you'll see some of the veggies below. I want a garden like this one day! =)

That is Squash above and Broccoli below...kinda cool, huh?

Tomatoes growing on the vine (above) and GIANT sunflowers (below) were all over the place...these flowers are so beautiful, you can't help but look at them and want to smile. They make me happy! =)

Our next stop was Mustard's Grill where we gorged on giant cheeseburgers and consumed as much water as possible to wash away all the different tasting wine flavors...then, off for more site-seeing and one more winery.

I just love the picture above of this palm tree......doesn't it just scream VACATION AND RELAXATION to you? It did for me...

Our last stop for the day was at Domaine Carneros where we tasted 'sparkling wine,' not to be confused with Champagne, as I learned on Saturday that you are only allowed to use the word Champagne if the grapes come from the Champagne region of France. Most of you might have already known this but it was news to me and I thought it was really interesting! I am a big champagne/sparkling wine fan so this was probably my favorite tasting of the day. It's crazy to taste one after the other after the other and be able to pick out the suttle differences in flavor that make them really taste a lot different. Domaine Carneros has this gigantic balcony overlooking the Napa Valley and the hundreds of rows of growing grapes, not to mention the immaculately manicured lawns with so many flowers and rolling greens that I just wanted to stay there...well...forever!

Look closely and you can see the little green grapes!

I'm sure you can tell by how many pictures I posted and me going on and on and ON about it that we just had a blast. I can't wait to go back up there - this was such a relaxing day - yummy wine, good friends, great food and amazing scenery...can't ask for more than that on a vacation get-a-way day!