Napa Valley. The world famous wine region, probably most well known by my generation as where Hallie lived in Parent Trap (more about that later)! After several days in cloudy, windy beach towns, Napa was an amazing break from that. We decided on touring some wineries, with Robert Mondavi as our first pick.
It was so interesting learning about all the tiny details that go into growing grapes with the perfect flavor and size for their wine. Our tour guide was FANTASTIC! It was like strolling around a gorgeous vineyard with an old friend who just happens to know everything about making wine.
Napa wineries (especially Mondavi) do an amazing job of not only making wine, but also creating a gorgeous and welcoming atmosphere. We saw little lizards running around, bees buzzing about, and even a bunny! Its crazy how the Mondavi winery allows so much of their growing process to rely on natural events. When you think of mass agriculture, you think of lots of chemicals and robots and what not. Not in Napa! Mondavi winery irrigates only when necessary, uses only natural pesticides, and pick completely by hand!
Is this Italy or California? We may never know.
Learning about the wine making process after harvest was so much to take in! Every detail, down to the type of wood the barrels are made of and the amount of humidity in the room outside the barrels, makes big differences in how the wines turn out!
That, my friends, is a lot of wine. This is where the wine spends most of its time after harvest. It just chills out in these barrels, soaking up the flavor of the wood and continuing to ferment.
After the tour, we got to do a wine tasting! Unfortunately, I was 4 months too young, so I got grape juice. However, if you are looking for the actual best grape juice on earth, look no further than Robert Mondavi. Its made with wine grapes instead of table grapes, so there is so much more flavor and less fake sugary taste.
The grounds at Robert Mondavi were beautiful. They have concerts here in the summer, as well as parties and other events!
Just look how perfect! It was by far one of the best parts of the whole trip! The day before, we were trying to find another winery to visit. Me and Hannah got super excited because we remembered that the vineyard from Parent Trap was in Napa! We found the name of it and called them up, hoping they would have an opening for us. Well, little did we know. Not only was the tour hundreds of dollars, they also told us that it was for "more experienced" wine connoisseurs (without even knowing how experienced we were) and that we shouldn't go near the property if we didn't have a reservation. Seems like the fame went straight to their heads. Hannah and I were so upset that our childhood dreams had been crushed! So instead, we decided to go to Beringer, a very well known winery.
Beringer had beautiful grounds, as seen here, and a very cool winery including essentially a wine making cave. The tour was mediocre, with nothing comparing to the tour guide from our first stop. However, we had fun and even bought a bottle of exclusive wine in the gift shop! This concluded our day in Napa, so stay tuned for the next days! I promise I will be more timely with those posts!
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