THE NAPA VALLEY WINE COUNTRY

It wasn’t a long trip from Gold Country to Wine Country but what a complete change in climate and countryside.

 We pulled in to the Elks Lodge here in Napa for the first time and were pleasantly pleased with the Lodge and the RV campground. While there are only 12 sites, they are all level with full hookups and the area is even nicely landscaped. It lies adjacent to the Napa River and a biking, jogging and walking path along the river bank. Very pleasant! Over the next few days we found their food service to be excellent and ate there a few times.


CHATEAU MONTELENA:

We headed north to see some of the famous wineries and started with the Chateau Montelena in Calistoga. This winery is in an old and very impressive “Chateau” built in 1882 and subsequently passed down through two owners until in the late 1960’s it was bought by Jim Barrett who was determined to make premium Chardonnay wine.

By 1976 an Englishman from France visited the Napa Valley and took samples of about twelve wines back to Paris where he conducted a “blind” tasting with a panel of prominent French judges. As luck would have it, the California wines won the day with Chateau Montelena placing first for the Chardonnay (white wine category) and Stag’s Leap taking first for the Cabernet (red wine category). That began the demand for Napa Valley wines until today there are over 200 wineries producing some two billion bottles each year. In 2008 Hollywood produced a wonderful film of the event called “Bottle Shock.”

On our return we stopped in to the CASTELLO DI AMOROSA in Saint Helena. This is a modern winery and hotel built to resemble an old Italian castle and is truly a magnificent structure that used many pieces of wood and stone imported from the original castle in Tuscany. Hollywood uses the castle as a backdrop for movies set in the

Tuscany region of Italy.

We then tried to find the “Falcon Crest” winery of TV fame and although we had visited there many years ago it is now only open to visitors by application only. It is really the Spring Mountain Winery but "Falcon Crest" sounded better on TV, I guess.

Thursday; we met with Anna Lee, an old friend from our Bechtel days. She and her friend Ken had driven an hour from Brentwood where they live to meet with us, it was nice catching up on our experiences over lunch and then out to sightsee the City of Napa. (Spelled: shopping!) The weather could not have been nicer as we strolled along the Napa River shops and restaurants.

We liked the Elks Lodge so much that we extended our stay until Saturday when we will head out for the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds.

So that's all for now, folks~~~~~~~~~~~Bye!