Visit to Napa

Dan and I had our first vacation without little Nicky  - it was bittersweet for me, excited to spend time with Dan but also sad to be away from Nicky for a long 3.5 days! We were fortunate to have Grandma and Poppa stay at our house to watch Nicky along with Dodger and Bentley.

Highlights of our trip:
Our first stop was Silver Oak - and for those who know me, I am a white wine kind of girl (not sure how many times I asked Dan "Do they have Riesling here?").  But, I must say, this was some really good red wine - I told Dan that if he wants me to start drinking reds (to cut down on the bottles of wine we drink), then it has to be Silver Oak (hey - it's on sale for $67.99 at Fry's!).  We definitely got our money's worth at Silver Oak.

Silver Oak signature building (I don't know what you would call that)

Standing in front of $24M of inventory!

Second day we went on a tour with 9 other people, and spent most of the day in Calistoga - it was fabulous.  Visited 5 wineries:

• Sterling Vineyards - took a little ride up the hill to get to the winery, had spectacular views!

View from the lift we were in taking us to the winery

Sterling Vineyards

• Twomey Winery - I can't really remember anything specific that stood out about this one.
• Dutch Henry Winery - took a cave tour and even got to drink a 2008 Merlot right out of the barrel!

Delicious!

• Laura Zahtila Vineyards - met the owner and winemaker - one of the few female winemakers in Napa Valley (former Cisco Executive, then had another calling).  Apparently 90% of wine in the Napa Valley is made by men.  You go girl!
• Envy - The last winery - we had a lot of wine by this point, and wouldn't you know it, I bought two bottles from here.  We'll see how it tastes when I open up a bottle.

Spent a day in Sonoma - first stop was at Ravenswood - we even met the winemaker who asked us our opinion about which label we liked better - they are changing it up a bit and wanted to get feedback from customers -so when you see the new label, just know that the Boncels had a say in it!

Then we went to Benziger (great tour!) and their sister winery Imagery.  Sonoma definitely has a different feel than Napa, we enjoyed them equally.  Topped off our vacation with dinner at Bottega, Michael Chiarello's restaurant.  Dan and I are huge Top Chef/Top Chef Masters/Food Network fans, so we had been looking forward to this dinner for months now - the food was fantastic!  And Dan surprised me with a chocolate souffle for my birthday - so sweet!!  We ate that dessert so fast that the couple next to us even made a comment of how quickly that dessert disappeared.

Bottega

Delish!

We had an amazing time in the Napa Valley, and will definitely return for another trip.  As great as our vacation was, I was very anxious to come home to Nicky, considering he turned 6 months old today!   Stay tuned for his 6 month post!