Napa – Day One

Above is a photo I took at Pride Mountain Vineyards

For my birthday, my husband and I took a short trip to California’s wine country- the Napa Valley. Here are a few photos from our trip. We flew out late on a Thursday night and drove an hour or so to get to our hotel in Sonoma at around 1 a.m. That’s 2 a.m. Colorado time. I never stay up that late! The next morning we hit the ground running! Literally. We went running, (which we love to do together), ate breakfast, then got in our car to get to our first appointment at Pride Mountain Vineyard. We stayed away from the larger wineries, as we visited the larger ones 4 years ago. We tried to stick with the smaller wineries, where the tours were very personal.

Below is wine being poured directly from the barrel.

Here we are inside the cave:

Next stop was Pride’s neighbor, Barnett Vineyards. Look at the view!

Here’s Jacqueline, our guide, retrieving the wine from the barrel:

Barnett is known for their Rattlesnake Cabernet. There’s a reason for the name:

Finally, our next stop was our quaint bed and breakfast. The Chanric Inn, located in Calistoga. One of the Owners, Ric, is a chef, and he makes the most AMAZING breakfasts!

Here are a few photos of the living area inside. It was a wonderful mix of modern and vintage:

For dinner we went to Tra Vigne. Here we are in front of the restaurant. Look at me with my big ‘ol camera bag!

We had made reservations for outdoor seating. The ambience was fabulous! We had the fig pizza as one of our entrees. It was the most amazing pizza we’ve ever had. I’ve never had figs before; I wish we had a fig tree...

Day one was packed full of picture taking, wine tasting, scenery viewing, and people meeting. Day two was just as great – more pictures to come!