Best Napa Tastings/Tours

My fiance and I are headed to Napa Valley as part of our Honeymoon at the beginning of December. While I have already scheduled a few tastings at special places, I was curious as to feedback to the best tasting and/or tour experiences in the valley? Any and all suggestions are welcome. We are very excited to visit the area in a few weeks! champagne.gif

Also, some restaurant recs in the valley would be greatly appreciated!

I know there have been threads about similar topics in the past, so I apologize in advance for digging up an ongoing topic.

I enthusiastically recommend the following Napa winery tours to all my friends:

Shafer
Hall (Rutherford location)
Dancing Hares
Schramsberg
St. Supery
Ladera

For food (other than The French Laundry):

Press
Redd
Mustard’s
Gott’s Roadside (burgers)
Dean & DeLuca (sandwiches/picnic foods)

Enjoy! [cheers.gif]

The tour at Pride really is nice.

I somehow always end up at Plumpjack. I like it.

By the way, the last time I was out there were tasting fees almost everywhere, but I ended up not paying any because I bought wine and they applied it as a credit to the purchase.

+1 on Schramsberg and Gott’s Roadside. Somewhat different than other wineries and food places in Napa.

We were there last month. For tours, I’d recommend Pride and Chappellet–for the overall experience–i.e. not only the wine tour, but also the drive and scenery.

Restaurants we were at:
Bistro Jeanty. My wife said it was the best meal she’s ever. An epiphany. Don’t miss.
Mustard’s Grill: Perhaps the best burger I have ever eaten. The rabbit–pretty good.
Glen Ellen Star: I ordered the special, duck confit and sausage. Everything I had that night was 10/10. My wife, 8/10.
Yeti (Glen Ellen): Dismal.
Glen Ellen Market: Incredible sandwich selection. 10/10. Can’t believe this market is in such a small town. By comparison, the sandwiches we had at Dean & Deluca were very disappointing. 4/10. But they have an excellent wine selection.

Congrats on the upcoming wedding, you’ve picked a great place to celebrate, IMO.

The Yountville area is a really nice place to hang out for an afternoon or a day. Several cool restaurants like Ad Hoc, Bouchon (which would be my choice), Redd, Redd Wood, Bouchon Bakery (for pastries and light sandwiches), Bottega. There are plenty of shops to wander if you want that, and a couple of very nice spas if either of you are into that. My favorite restaurant in the Valley is probably Press, though all of the recs above are good as well.

For wineries, I agree with Pride as a very cool place to visit (make an appointment, but that’s not problem to get in advance). Shafer would be a great visit if you can arrange it (use the honeymoon card wherever you go, of course).

In addition to food and wine, if you’re at all interested in fine art photography, be sure to go to Mumm Napa and walk through their beautiful photography gallery. There is always a rotating exhibit of some kind, and usually some Ansel Adams on display as well. Speaking of which, Turnbull winery has a very nice photog exhibit in their tasting room. That would make a nice stop for tasting and viewing. They are supposed to change over to an all Ansel Adams display in December, though I’m not sure exactly when.

Have fun, don’t plan too much, relax and enjoy!

I really enjoyed Stony Hill.

If you know anyone who can wrangle you a Dominus tour, it’s tremendously interesting.

I would add for dinner restaurants, Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. As for wineries, something out of the norm, I really liked the people and tasting at Porter Family (near Atlas Peak). Depending if you are on their lists there are Myriad and Realm Cellars. While near Shafer, I would consider visits to Failla and Boswell. And, even if not for the wine, a beautiful place to visit is Chateau Montelena.

[quote=“Gary Ahearn”]We were there last month. For tours, I’d recommend Pride and Chappellet–for the overall experience–i.e. not only the wine tour, but also the drive and scenery.

Restaurants we were at:
Bistro Jeanty. My wife said it was the best meal she’s ever. An epiphany. Don’t miss.
Mustard’s Grill: Perhaps the best burger I have ever eaten. The rabbit–pretty good.
Glen Ellen Star: I ordered the special, duck confit and sausage. Everything I had that night was 10/10. My wife, 8/10.
Yeti (Glen Ellen): Dismal.
Glen Ellen Market: Incredible sandwich selection. 10/10. Can’t believe this market is in such a small town. By comparison, the sandwiches we had at Dean & Deluca were very disappointing. 4/10. But they have an excellent wine selection.[/q

The owner and Chef at Glen Ellen Star is an old friend of mine, Ari Weiswasser. Rising star in the culinary world and the restaurant is doing some great things. I would highly recommend making a stop there if you can

  • 1 on Glen Ellen Star. I think tastings/tours is impossible to answer without more info on what kind of experience and wine you’re looking for.

Since I don’t know what you like in wine I’ll just mention Herb Lamb, Lagier Meredith and Anderson Conn Valley because the people can be so much fun and the quality of wine.


Don’t want fu fu food: Too much food is available at Cole’s Chop House and Ristorante Allegria. Real food the locals flock to so reservations are a must. Don Perico’s if you want too much Mexican food. All within one block.

What part of the valley are you staying in? (It will help with food recs.)

Have fun - you cannot go too far wrong…

Wineries we like:

  • 10 am sparklers on the patio at Gloria Ferrer or Domaine Carneros (Carneros, not Napa)
  • Pride, Chappellet, Realm, Favia, Mike Smith at Carter, Morlet
  • Failla for a nice wine change-up (pinot instead of cab) and
  • there are lots of fine wineries around which we have never been to
  • don’t rule out a day in Sonoma either for some beautiful scenery and some great pinots.

Restaurants:

  • Been to Morimotos, ZuZu, Oenitri in Downtown Napa. All are good but I like the wine and tapas at ZuZu.
  • Bottega in Yountville is great - SH and I always eat at the bar there.
  • We love sipping wine and nashing pizza with a great expansive view of Napa Valley from the patio at Auberge du Soleil. Get a couple massage if you got the benjamins.

Del Dotto Caves is fun, be prepared to barrel sample a ton. I am sitting in SFO now heading back from our trip and we had a tour at Storybook that was fun, interesting, and informative.

If you get over to the Sonoma side, we did a tour at Ridge this morning and that was great. Really informative, took close to two hours and the wines were singing. I’ll come back with the vintages but we tasted the Carignana, Pagani Ranch Zin, Lytton Springs Zin, Estate Merlot, and 2012 Monte Bello.

Press is an excellent recommendation, we’ve dined there three times out of four visits. If you enjoy bacon, definitely get the sampler as an app or with drinks before dinner.

We also dined at Bottega and really enjoyed the meal there. I’d certainly go back.

+1 Very cool people. Sarah Sandbeck of Sommelier on Wheels introduced me to them. I had some amazing whites from the 80’s & 90’s while visiting in 2007 & 2011.

Scalon Cellars
Mark Herold Downtown

Fisher is a great visit with a beautiful property, terrific wines, and a very friendly staff (including several Fisher family members). Their Cabs, Merlot/blends, Syrah, and Chardonnay are all excellent.

Celadon, Torc and La Toque are all very good restaurants in downtown. Oneotri and Ca’Momi are also good (casual).

We would love to host you - please PM me if you would like to set up a tasting with us - our new Napa tasting room should be ready by December. We share space with pureCru wines and are located in the courtyard across from Oneotri.

Karen

One of the things I enjoyed to do was to concentrate tastings and tours into a specific area versus running all over the place. We also liked to stop at the oakville grocer to get some provisions for the day like bread, cheese, water, etc to have a nibble as you went from place to place.

For example, if going to pride up spring mountain, which is a beautiful drive, I would also consider tours/tastings at Sherwin family, Barnett vineyards, etc. Spottswoode is another place to work into one of the ends of this road trip is at the base of spring mountain road.

Howell mountain is another area to explore but is on the opposite side of the valley. Many places to explore.

The carneros area is another. South and west of the city of Napa. The rec for domaine Carneros is spot on especially for a days starter on a sunny day. Had a great time at etude. The outdoor space was fun and they had a band the day we were there.