Vacation - Day 3 (Calistoga)

Monday, September 29

We drove from American Canyon to Calistoga; stopping in Napa for breakfast at Denny's.

Our first stop of the day was the W.H. Wine Tasting Room for a 2 hour Wine Sensory Experience.
http://www.winesensoryexperience.com/Pages/default.aspx

The Wine Sensory Experience is designed to help all level of tasters develop the ability to identify aromas and flavor profiles of wines. Learn how chocolate, clove, smoke and caramel "get into" the wine. Unlock the secrets of terrior and be ready to be amazed at all there is to know about wine making, vineyard management and the simple things like how many grapes does it take to make a bottle of wine?

The Wine Sensory Experience is fun and unique. Located in historic downtown Calistoga the Wine Sensory Experience will teach you all you ever wanted to know about wine.

Lunch was down the street at the Calistoga Inn & Brewery. 
http://calistogainn.com/restaurant.html
The reuben sandwiches were a big hit!!

The afternoon was spent at Schramsberg with a cave tour and tasting.
http://www.schramsberg.com/

1862 : Jacob Schram founds Schramsberg.
1870 : Schramsberg has 30,000 vines and digs Napa’s first hillside caves

1880 : Author Robert Louis Stevenson visits Schramsberg. Descriptions of his stay are recorded in his book, Silverado Squatters. Schramsberg produces 8,403 cases of wine from 50 acres of vines.
1965 : 200 acre Schramsberg property purchased by Jack and Jamie Davies. First crush of grapes under the Davies proprietorship of Schramsberg Vineyards and Cellars. Crush included the sole use of Chardonnay from the Charles Krug winery for Champagne; an innovation in the United States, using the Méthode Traditionnelle process of winemaking.
1976 : Blanc de Blancs (1973) served at the White House Bicentennial Dinner by President Ford for Queen Elizabeth II.
1980: Schramsberg Reserve introduced: vintage dated, aged on the yeast 4 years before disgorging, yet another innovation in the United States.

 We got to see how the bottles are "riddled" by hand.

 Unique bottle stacking technique (every other bottle is stacked front to back)

 Tasting of the sparking wine.

On our way back to the hotel we had some time so we stopped at Grgich Hills.
http://www.grgich.com/
We needed to purchase another wine glass for our home collection.

 At Grgich Hills they have tasting vineyards of each type of grape they grow.
Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet, etc...
Audrey is shown here tasting some grapes.

 Doug explaining something about the grapevines.

 We stopped in St. Helena on our way back to the hotel for dinner.
http://travignerestaurant.com/pizzeria/