Swirl, Smell, and Sip!

Ok, so it's late Wednesday night and I figured I'd update our afternoon events. After the Golden Gate Bridge ride we slowly made our way North to Napa Valley. This is the closest thing outside Italy we've seen that reminded us of Florence, it's really amazing what this area has to offer. We managed to squeeze in 3 different wine tastings, which is probably a good limit given how generous they are with their portions. Rutherford Hill, and the infamous Mondavi Estate (pictured below) were great choices, with the latter offering us the best options. The estates are large and complex, and they seem to spend as much time on their decor as they do on their wine making process. I tried acting like i knew everything about wine tasting, and i appreciated their attempts at seeming impressed at what I had to say! But in the end there was no way for me to tell the difference between the blackberry's, oak, or nutty fruitness that were supposedly in some of the wines! However, trying is a whole lot of fun!!! ;)

After we had sampled a couple of hours, we found a great place to buy some assortments of cheese. bread, and salads. We settled in at Rutherford Hill Estate, a great vineyard high atop a hill that offered us the best view of the day (see pic below). Things were going great for us, but things ended aburptly when I told Tonia that I was ready to go to our B&B so I could take a Nap-pa..........for some reason I got no laughs. Oh well, you win a few, you lose a few!!!

Enjoy the pics, tomorrow we start our treck South to Monterey. Th weather is expected to pick up soon....at least we're hoping!!!