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Napa Valley
The name Napa Valley should not be unfamiliar to those who love red wine. Napa Valley is a red wine mecca in Northern California, and it only takes about two hours to drive from Silicon Valley. The first time I went to Napa Valley, I decided to go to wineries for a day trip. Originally, I thought I would simply pick a few famous wineries to visit, but I didn't realize that after checking out some Chinese and English information on the internet, I found that the wineries that different types of tourists go to are really quite different from each other. Because Napa is so famous, it is very commercialized, in fact, many Napa wineries are attracting guests with special architectural design or beautiful scenery and special events, etc. Some people don't drink wine but only look at the scenery, so they can walk all over Napa in one day, so you have to think about what kind of itinerary you want to arrange before you go there.
Our main goal was wine tasting, so we couldn't arrange too many wineries in one day, so we ended up locking in only four, namely Robert Mondavi, Del Detto, V. Sattui and Beringer, which are only 6.5 miles away from each other by car.
Robert Mondavi
- Service Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Price/performance ratio: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
At the beginning of the Signature tour, we were introduced to the founder of the winery and the history of the winery, and then we were taken to see the grape growing area, the winery, and the knowledge about red wine, such as the wine consumed in the United States is only 4% which comes from the famous Napa valley, and the most famous wine in Napa is Cabernet sauvignon, why roses are planted next to the vineyard, and so on. Why roses are planted next to vineyards, etc. The whole process is about watching the scenery and listening to the stories. The whole process is to watch the scenery and listen to the stories. After listening to all the stories, the last level was the long awaited wine tasting, there were three kinds of wines in total.
The first bottle was Chardonnay unoaked, a nice white wine, but I personally prefer red wine, so I didn't particularly like it. The second bottle was Pinot noir PNX, a heavier red wine, but a little too thick for me. Although it was mentioned in the introduction that some of the wines on the shelves in the winery are winery reserved, meaning that they can only be bought in the winery, it seems that these bottles can also be found outside the winery, only that it is cheaper to buy them in the winery. The third bottle was the famous Cabernet sauvignon. Napa's Cabernet sauvignon is really better than other places' Cabernet sauvignon. Finally, I was treated with a special sweet wine, moscato d'oro, which was the most special wine in this tour. This tour is a great value for money, especially if you just want to taste and not buy a lot of wine, you can't go wrong with a tour to learn some wine tasting knowledge. In addition, there are discount programs at these wineries, such as joining Robert Mondavi winery's membership and ordering the reserved wines that are delivered every season, you can taste the wines for free at the sister wineries.
Before entering the winery, there was a small incident. After arriving at the winery, I realized that I was an idiot for forgetting my wallet and ID, and I was a bit nervous about what I would do if I couldn't taste the wine without my ID. Luckily, I had a backup of all my documents, so I connected to the winery's WiFi and downloaded it on the spot. It took me a while to unzip it so I could have enough space (my old cell phone's SD card didn't have enough space), but after all the preparations, no one ever checked my documents during the whole trip....
Del Dotto
- Wine Tasting Environment: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Service Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Price/performance ratio: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The second winery we visited was one that seemed to be less popular on the internet.Del DottoDel Dotto also has a tour, the price is $80 can taste eight kinds of wine and comes with a meal, but we were worried about drinking too much and couldn't go to the winery, so we decided to try a bar tasting for two. $30 can try five kinds of wine (many of which are priced $100 up) and provides cheese and noodles. Del Dotto also has a tour at $80 for eight wines with a meal, but we were worried about drinking too much and not being able to go to the rest of the wineries, so we decided to try a bar tasting for two. $30 allows you to try five kinds of wines (many of which are priced at $100 up), and the cheeses and breads provided are very tasty, which is considered to be our favorite part of the wine tasting on this trip. I tried Chardonnay ($85), 2010 Pinot Noir ($75), two different Cabernet Sauvignon (2011 Vineyard 887 Centre Sylvain $125, 2011 St. Helena Mountain $125, 2011 Vineyard 887 Centre Sylvain $125 and 2011 St. Helena Mountain $125). Mountain $125), 2011 Cave Blend (50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 10% Sauvignon blanc $49). The wines here were undoubtedly the best of the day, and the Cab portion should be the best Cab I've had so far, but I'm actually a fan of Merlot, and there's not much difference in Cab for me, so I still liked Cave Blend the best out of the five I tried, and the price was acceptable and the quality was also good. I wanted to choose some gifts for my friends who don't drink alcohol, so I was recommended olive oil during the discussion. After I tried the bread with olive oil, I bought two bottles of Cave Blend. We bought two bottles of olive oil, and because we bought enough, we were given a free glass of Sauvignon blanc at the end.
Beringer
- Wine Tasting Environment: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Service Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Price/performance ratio: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The third tour was originally planned to be at V. Sattui Winery, but we had too much to drink at Del Dotto, and the long lines at the restaurant we wanted to eat at for lunch made it too late to join the tour. So we went to the distillery to check out the historic barrels. In fact, the selling point of this restaurant is the picnic, after the tour, we also went to the picnic BBQ, but we were in a hurry, so we had to order sandwitch to go to the next Beringer.
BeringerIt is the oldest winery in Napa and the first one to provide commercialization. You can often find their wines in supermarkets. We came here in the mood to learn more about Napa's history, and joined the tour at 3:30 p.m. The price was $40, which was the same for three kinds of wines, but Beringer is bigger and has a history, so we could see a lot of interesting things throughout the tour. We visited the cellar where the wine used to be made, and in the middle of the tour, we were allowed to taste the half-finished red wine (the taste of the unfinished wine is not as good!). Beringer is the oldest winery in the world because the owner had a good head for business, and the tour guide bragged about the movies that had been filmed there. During the Prohibition era, most distilleries were forced to close, but Beringer was able to survive by gaining the right to serve church liquor. Beringer was able to survive by gaining the right to offer church wines, which gave it a great advantage when Prohibition was lifted. The final tasting focused on teaching us how to pair wine and food. Salt, chocolate, and lemon were provided, and we were asked to take a sip of each food item to get a feel for how different wines and foods work together, and were given a handout to take home and review.
Simply put, salty or sour foods will make a wine taste milder and less bitter, while sweet foods will make a wine taste more sour and bitter. Meat, seafood, etc. will also enhance the flavor of wine. The key to food pairing is to strike a balance with the characteristics of the wine to achieve your personal preference.
Maybe because I had tasted more expensive wines earlier, my palate was a bit paralyzed, and I didn't have any special feeling for these three wines from Beringer: 2010 Chardonnay ($35), 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon ($32), 2007 Nightingale ($40), and the last one was a dessert wine similar to ice wine. The last one is dessert wine, which is similar to ice wine.
After the tour was over, it was about time for the wineries to close around 5pm, so we didn't plan to go anywhere else, so we just strolled around Beringer looking for a place to have a picnic. We were thinking about buying a couple of glasses of wine to go with the sandwiches we had bought earlier, when we saw a couple of Indians who were on the tour with us coming out of the store with by glasses of red wine, so we followed them in to check the price. In fact, I didn't really want to drink after tasting wine all day, but the lady who sold us the wine probably wanted to make the last sale of the day, and tried to recommend buying the whole bottle as a better deal. She took out the bottle to show us, and it just so happened that the bottle was my favorite merlot, so I seriously considered it and the lady let us try a large glass. Because the price was cheap, the lady was generous and the flavor was my favorite, so of course I bought it! After we bought it, the lady even asked if we wanted to open it and drink it, and when we said we couldn't finish it, she simply poured us two more large glasses for free! We ended our trip to Napa in Beringer with these two glasses of merlot and pork chop sandwiches.
Other Wine Tasting Trips
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