My Windows Are Rolled Down: More Wine? Why Not?- Napa, Part 2

Another kind of cruddy morning in Napa. Cruddy weather that is. The drive to our third vineyard was scenic and beautiful though. The entire highway is lined with beautiful bushes of flowers that are just to lovely and welcoming.

Our first tour of the day was at Silver Oak. If I thought the grounds where well kept at the last two places we went, these groundskeepers need a raise! Seriously, it was a gorgeous drive up to the tasting room.

While we waited for our tour to begin we started off with a cabernet. I actually didn't realize that Silver Oak only does cabernet, but jeez, they stick to what they're good at. Touring the facilities, we tried the Alexander Valley, Napa Valley, and 2005 Napa Valley Reserve. Each was better than the last. We got to tour the vineyards, we got to know a little more about the history of the winery, we got to see the barrel room and the wine library. We were shown their magnum bottles that hold 40 bottles of wine and go for $2,800. Overall, it was an informative, beautiful tour.

Our next stop was Domaine Chandon. I am a big fan of sparkling wine so I was really excited to do a tasting. We decided to not do a tour of the vineyard because we felt like we had already heard a lot of similar information, so we just sat down at one of their tables on their patio and tasted three bruts: a classic sparkling wine, one made from a pinot grigio grape, and a sparkling rose.

We finished our tasting, looked at each other and decided that we weren't quite done yet. We ordered a bottle of their classic sparkling wine and also a cheese and salumi plate that paired so well with the wine. Duh.

We definitely took our time enjoying ourselves, the wine, and the food. We were sad when we were done, but had to move on.

My mom told me that the town we were staying in had a Jelly Belly factory in it. I'm not a huge fan of jelly beans, but I thought it would be really cool to go on a tour. Unfortunately, there was a lot of traffic on the way back from Napa and we missed the last tour by 10 minutes. Still, we walked around the colorful gift shop and each got a small baggie of a mix we made ourselves. We were tired from the long day and decided to head back to our hotel for the night.