Today we went on a wine country tour. We booked it last night after consulting with Lex, the very helpful concierge here at the Omni San Francisco. The deal was a bus from Tower Tours picked us up at our hotel, took us to their head shed on Fisherman's Wharf where we paid the fee, then we jump on their bus to take us on the tour.
It was really cool. First we drive across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland. There are two segments to this bridge. The first from San Francisco to Treasure Island:
After driving through a tunnel, we're on the segment that takes us to Oakland. This is the new part as the old one had to be replaced because it could not be brought up to current earthquake code:
Many hundreds of millions of dollars must be going into this new bridge. It is impressive.
Our first stop was Madonna Estate in Napa Valley.
Maurice was our host and he gave us a brief talk on the history of the winery. 
Those are grape vines in the background. The growing season is over, but they will bloom again sometime in March. These folks have been around since the early 1900s, so they certainly pre-date the pop star.
He took us into the cellar. In front of us were barrels of wine that are aging.
Then came the fun part. 
We got to taste five different varietals, but the Pinot Noir really impressed us. So we bought a bottle.
We then went to Yountville for lunch. We stopped at this wonderful little shopping area and ate at the Napa Style Grill.
Sutter Home was our next stop:
After sampling a half dozen of their wines, we went over to Sonoma valley for our third and final stop at Sebastiani:
Our host gave is a fascinating summary of the history of the winery, then she had us sample five of their wines.
The name Sebastiani sounded very familiar to us. As it turned out, their Cabernet Sauvignon was on our list of favourite wines that we've been compiling for the last several years.
Back on the bus, we returned to San Francisco via the famous Golden Gate Bridge:
What a day!
Wow, looks fun.
ReplyDeleteI wont even tell you what the temp is here. Its brutal.
Enjoy the good weather while you can.