Trip to Napa Valley / San Francisco

June 6, 2010

I just got back from a week-long trip to San Francisco and the Napa wine country. While there I visited numerous wineries and restaurants, including The French Laundry, J Winery, Cakebread, Rodney Strong, Castello di Amorosa, St. Francis Winery, Matanzas Creek Winery, Grgich Hills Estate, B.R. Cohn (manager of The Doobie Brothers), Kunde, Stryker, and the list goes on. I also took a tour of Alcatraz, which was very cool. although the facilities themselves were much smaller than I had thought they would be, after watching “The Rock” about 100 times on DVD.

Alcatraz:

This is a statue in San Francisco near AT&T Park. If anyone knows what the name of it is, I’d appreciate it.

Matanzas Creek, a nice little winery in Sonoma: http://www.matanzascreek.com/

This statue was near the house we stayed in

The French Laundry – after 9 courses and 7 bottles of wine, everyone was happy. They let us keep the menus as a memento, since they create a brand new menu every day. http://www.frenchlaundry.com/

Cellar at Cakebread Cellars, another great winery: http://www.cakebread.com/

Castello di Amorosa – a very unique winery that only sells its wines at the castle itself. The castle was completed quite recently, a result in over a decade of building and research. http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/

At B.R. Cohn they have many classic car events throughout the year, and some pretty cool model cars out front. The owner is the manager of The Doobie Brothers, so there’s some cool rock memorabilia inside, and they donate all of the proceeds from one of their wines to the Armed Services. They also have their own Olive Oil. http://www.brcohn.com/

At the Kunde Family Estate, they have a fantastic cheese and wine pairing, featuring local and national cheeses. One in particular, called Barely Buzzed, was our favorite – it was rubbed in espresso for a very unique flavor. http://www.kunde.com/

The St. Francis Winery may be the most beautiful location in all of the California wine country. They offer a lunch and wine pairing that is just fantastic – I highly recommend it. http://www.stfranciswine.com/