Napa 2019

December 22 to 27 2019

We decided last year that our new Christmas tradition would be travel. Ultimately my goal is to be gone from before Christmas to after New Year but so far we have managed to be gone just over Christmas.

Last year we went to Kauai. This year we decided on wine country. We had been to Sonoma years ago so we chose Napa this time.

Christmas is a great time to be in Napa, most everything is open but it is not busy.

Getting There

My last trip in November my Uber driver appeared to be stoned enough that I was worried about getting to the airport safely.

This time the Uber picked us up at my wife’s office building. She did not get out of the car to open the trunk. I thought this was a little odd but some drivers don’t want to put our bags in the trunk but they usually greet us outside the car.

On the drive to the airport she was driving slowly she didn’t seem able to follow the direction on the GPS and almost missed the exit onto highway 5. It was early in the morning so I asked her if she was just ending her shift and she said she was just starting.

She seemed really tired or stoned. Either way it is not good. This is the second trip to the airport that the Uber driver has seemed chemically altered.

Our flight was delayed for an hour and a half. Luckily we had a direct flight to San Francisco. Once we landed, got our bags, took the train to the rental car complex and got our car, we were off for wine country.

It was a Sunday so there wasn’t much traffic getting through San Francisco. It took an hour and a half to get to our hotel in Napa.

The Andaz Hotel

It appeared the Hotel was in a renovated brick building in downtown Napa. It is a beautiful building. Our room was large and well appointed. The Andaz Farmer’s Table is located in the main floor of the hotel. We had breakfast there several days and it was better than other places in town. It was reasonably priced. The bar was a great place to hang out too.

Winery tour

My wife booked a winery tour for us. The limo was a luxury Mercedes Sprinter van that could hold ten people. The driver was a very nice older man named Mike. Since it was slow season, there was only one other couple. They were from Kodiak Alaska.

Our first Winery was Monticello. It is a smaller winery. It had a two-thirds size replica of Thomas Jefferson’s house, Monticello.

It was a good tour. The four of us were the only people there. We got to sample wines directly from the barrels. We had an interesting demonstration about wine appellations. They had two casks with the same type grapes that were picked at the same time but grown five miles apart. Both wines were good but they tasted completely different.

The tasting fee was $25 each but if we bought a bottle of wine, which we did, the bottle was discounted.

The next winery was Grgich Hills. This was the largest winery we visited. The original person that did our tasting was very good. She had to leave and her replacement was a grumpy old man. He didn’t seem happy to be there and he had a hard time explaining our options for purchasing wine. Karen and I split a tasting here.

The interesting story about this winery is the movie Bottle Shock was based on Grgich Hills but the owner refused to allow his name to be used because the fighting between the father and son in the movie wasn’t accurate also the wine didn’t turn brown.

The third winery was Pestoni. The gentleman who did our tasting was one of the growers for the winery. We had lunch here. By this time, we were all a little buzzed.

Karen and I had split one of the tastings and didn’t have any of the champagne that was in the limo. The other couple had not split any tastings and had polished off the bottle of champagne that was in the limo so they were borderline trashed. It was still fun.

The last tasting was at Ghost Block. This is a family owned winery. Both Karen and I liked the Ghost Block wines. Most of the wines were $25 to $35 per bottle but we likes most everything we tasted.

Calistoga and Castello di Amoroso Winery

We wanted to visit Castello di Amoroso Winery so we drove to Calistoga for breakfast before touring the winery. Per Trip Advisor the Calistoga Roastery was one of the top rated breakfasts in Calistoga. We were disappointed with our breakfasts. The food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as breakfast in Napa.

Calistoga is interesting. There are many hotels and spas with hot springs. If we came back to thisi area we would stay a couple of days in Calistoga.

Castello di Amoroso Winery is an amazing recreation of a midevil Italian castle. They imported more than a million of the original stones from Italy.

The castle had a throne room, torture room, moat, small drawbridge and storage for barrels. The tour is really worthwhile. The tasting, on the other hand, was pour least favorite. The only thing we liked in the tasting was one of the dessert wines.

Petrified Forest

The petrified forest is just outside of Calistoga. A farmer discovered the rock like trees in 1870. He was called petrified Charlie after that. The trees are amazing. They have excavated come of them so you can see a good portion of the rock hard trunk.

Stone Brewery

Stone Brewery makes some excellent beers. They are located off Suscol Avenue and 3^rd Street. We walked there because there appeared to be no parking. They have a downstairs bar and an upstairs bar so there is plenty of room. Stone is located on the Napa river and has a lot of outdoor seating. In a warmer month it would be nice to enjoy their outside seating.

Oxbow Market

The Oxbow Market is a short walk down First Avenue and over the bridge from the Andaz. It is an indoor market with everything from ice cream to craft beer. We were there over Christmas which was pretty slow in the other parts of town but the Oxbow was always busy.

We liked Hog Island Oysters so much we went there twice. The oysters were amazing. We sat at the bar so we could watch them get shucked.

We walked past Fieldworks Brewing after leaving Hog Island Oysters when I happened to notice they brewed Belgian style beers. We immediately got in line to order. I had the Lilith Belgian Golden Ale. It was very good. My wife likes sours so she ordered the Raspberry Parfait.

We wished we would have made it back to enjoy other restaurants at Oxbow but there are many other good restaurants to try in Napa.

The Other Restaurants

Bounty Hunter Wine Bar and Smokin Barbeque- We had the sampler barbeque plate and it was excellent barbeque. It was too much for Karen and I to finish. I liked the almost hunting lodge feel of the restaurant.

Basalt- We made the mistake of thinking since Napa wasn’t busy, we didn’t need reservations for Christmas Eve. We wandered through town and every restaurant we stopped at had an hour or longer wait until we got to Basalt. There were a lot of empty tables so they were able to seat us immediately. That was a little concerning. This was our least favorite dinner in Napa but we were happy that we could get into a restaurant.

Napkin Bar and Grill- After not being able to get into a good restaurant Christmas Eve we went back to our room and made a reservation for Christmas day dinner at Napkin. It was completely full when we were there so I am glad we made a reservation. Both of our meals were very good. We brought the bottle of wine we purchased at Monticello and paid the $15 corkage fee. The waiter had high praise for the winery and the bottle we bought.

We sat a table near the bar and there was a group of people that were at the bar the entire time we were there. They were loud and had obviously been drinking for a while when we sat down. Most of them were still there when we left and many shots were downed while we were there. I was amazed there were still on their feet when we left.

Grace’s Table- We had breakfast here twice. It was our favorite place for breakfast. The odd thing about the restaurant is they did not open until 8:30 am. Since we are Midwesterners, we were usually up by 6 am so we had to go out for coffee before breakfast.

Algeria- It was very highly rated on Trip Advisor. We were a little disappointed. It was good Italian food but not even close to the best we have had.

Napa Roastery- I like to support local businesses so we stopped here on our last day while we were waiting for Grace’s Table to open. There is a Starbucks kitty corner from the Roastery but this looked better. We had better coffee at the Andaz.

Returning Home

After breakfast we went back to the hotel, packed and checked out. The quickest route back to SFO was over the Bay Bridge but I wanted to show Karen the Golden Gate bridge. I had pleasure of driving over it when returning to SFO on work trips. It is beautiful.

Our plan was to stop at Fisherman’s Warf for lunch. We changed our minds on the drive back. We probably had enough time but the issue with finding parking. From previous trips I know there is a ramp but I believe it was $20 minimum charge years ago so we drove to the airport.

This might be a little too personal but I have never seen this before, it definitely is not a midwestern thing. We stopped to tank the car before the rental car exit. I was going to use the restroom after filling the car up but I discovered that they don’t have a restroom for the public. I have never seen that before.

After filling up the car we drove to the rental car return, dropped the car and took the train back to terminal 1.

I am old enough to remember when the rental cars were at the terminals and how disappointed I was when they moved it and added a ten minute train ride get too or from the terminal.

We were over three hours early for the flight. After we cleared security Karen noticed a Delta lounge so we paid the $29 fee rather than hangout in the busy airport. It was worth it. We had drinks, food and a place to stretch out until we had to board the plane.

We were upgraded to Comfort + on the flight back. Which is really nice.