What I would like to start off by saying is that I thought this was going to be an adults only type of day. I mean, come on, its eight hours of wine tastings. Who would drag children to that? I'll tell you, at least three couples on this tour! I mean they were cute until they started screaming their heads off as I was trying to enjoy my gorgeous Napa Valley views. That was not the soundtrack I thought I would be getting when I signed up for this. The kids needed some wine to knock them out is all I'm gonna say.
We got on a tour bus and headed through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge as our tour guide, Gordy, talked non stop about the history of wine, the city, and Napa itself. Gordy had to be early 60s and had the voice of someone who was doing a voiceover for a Disney ride. Crisp, clear, warm, and you know he has given the same speech well over 500 times. It was pretty impressive that he was able to talk for the hour that it took us to get to our first winery.
Nicholson Ranch was exactly what you would expect out of a Napa Valley wine tasting and it was hands down the best winery of the day.
(Note to my mother: You texted me to bring you a glass or something but don't worry, you were taken care of!)
At one point I left to go to the bathroom and I came back to Rocco laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he explained to me that when I was gone he talked up this small group of girls and starting feeding them a bunch of BS about the different wines. He used words like "Robust, elegant and extremely smooth!" Rocco does not know jack shit about wine. For anyone who knows him knows that he can turn on the charm when he wants to. This is why I can not leave the kid alone for more then five minutes!
We drove another 40 minutes into Napa to a little town called Yontville. Now I still can not figure out if it is a resort town or what because the whole layout was extremely confusing. Still we had an amazing lunch that looked out onto the mountains. I took pictures on my snapchat but of course did not save them. The last winery we went to was Sutter Home. Now when I booked this tour I was immediately turned off by this being one of the places to go. I used to love Sutter Home and I drank their white zinfandel religiously my first few years of college. However, last February Rocco and I decided to create a drinking game when watching Disney movies during a snow storm and all we drank was Sutter Home white zinfandel. We killed close to four bottles of it. That night I got really sick and now every time I even see white zinfandel in a bottle I feel sick. It was as if they knew because the first wine offered at the tasting was white zinfandel. Now they told us that this perticular bottle was a reserve meaning that it was made with real California grapes and is a lot better then what is sold in stores because those bottles are known to be made with grapes that are not from California. Guess what, its all lies because it tasted exactly the same. I drank it because obviously I hate wasting alcohol but I also hated myself afterward for drinking it in the first place. |
From Sutter Home it was about a two hour drive back to the city. The pictures I saw before this trip were amazing and honestly everything looked exactly like the pictures. It was not a bad ride home to say the least.