Napa Weekend

Dave received a very generous gift card for his birthday to the Carneros Inn in Napa. We booked Friday and Saturday night and were determined to have a very relaxing weekend, our last chance before the busy holidays and the upcoming tax season......especially since we didn't get our trip to Europe or Hawaii this year.

Our cottage

Beautiful grounds

Nice scenery

Let me back up to the prior weekend. We attended a wonderful wedding of the daughter of a long-time dear friend. That could be a post all alone, but I know how you all LOVE photos and I did not take my camera. Sometimes when I have my camera, I get so involved with taking photos that I don't enjoy and experience the moment, so I decided to enjoy the wedding and left the camera at home. Anyway.....the couple are very in to wine and served three different wines at the dinner. I had a friend of theirs sitting next to me and he claimed to have introduced them to wines, and told me the story of each winery. Since we knew we were headed to Napa the next weekend, I took notes and decided we'd visit those wineries. We seem to go to the usual and familiar and rarely wander off to try something new.

On our way up on Friday, we stopped at one of the "wedding wineries", HDV. We had to make reservations. I thought the small boutique wineries require reservations because, well....I was wrong. It seems that a reservation is required by the local zoning laws. They want to keep the traffic down on the agricultural/rural roads. This makes sense. Oh, and the wineries are so small that they would be overloaded with large groups, to say nothing if a bus stopped by.

The host at HDV is really in to wines, he's studying to be a sommelier. This is not a place to stop if you're a casual wine drinker. They're known for their chardonnay, which is spectacular...and expensive. We ended up spending a couple of hours in this itty bitty winery, tasting and visiting....the KMA limo owners were a hoot. But it was time to check in, so off we went.

At the Carneros Inn, our little cottage was wonderful. We especially LOVED the radiant heated floors in the bathroom. The shower had a door on to the deck, just in cast we wanted to shower outdoors. The days were very warm and sunny, but the mornings and evenings were really cold. We had a couples massage on Saturday, laid around and read, and ate both evenings at The Farm. Dave had the BEST oysters ever and I had the BEST lobster risotto ever. The food was SPECTACULAR!!!!!

On our way home Sunday, we stopped at another "wedding winery", Elyse winery. This is a very cozy place. The tasting room is behind a house. The pourers was friendly, knowledgeable, and very fun....oh, and the wines were good too! We didn't make it to the third "wedding winery", we're saving that for our next visit.