jenHeading to Napa and visiting some of the Vineyards had always been a key focus for our time in California. With time limited, we worked out that the best way to see Napa wineries and vineyards would be to take the Napa Valley Wine Train.
The wine train was a very indulgent and wonderful experience. It starts with breakfast on the train and then a tasting flight of wine next to the infamous ‘Welcome to Napa’ sign.
From the stop at the sign, we headed to the top of our route to the Charles Krug Vineyard. One of the oldest vineyards in Napa, we got to tour one of the fields and taste some of their wine in a pretty impressive tasting room above the barrels. From memory (!) I think my favourite was their Family Generations Reserve.
After Charles Krug we headed to V Sattui – this vineyard was different to Charles Krug in many ways, the main being that it had a restaurant/deli/store element to it. According to our tour guide, most vineyards in Napa are banned from having a deli in them so as to preserve the land and building use for one, but V Sattui had opened their deli before this became local law. The tasting room in their building was equally as impressive as Charles Krug, set amongst the barrels in a surprisingly cool cellar.
We were fairly tired after a full on day on the train, however, as we didn’t have long in Napa and we would be pushing off to Monterey the next morning we decided to go out and find something non-grape based to drink! Before long we found a small bottle shop as you reach the train tracks into Napa, Matt had a local IPA and I had a root beer (one of my main aims for the trip is to consume enough that I don’t miss it so much when I get back!). Whilst we were sat outside a couple who has been on our train journey appeared to have had the same idea as they were also drinking beer and watching the sunset!
Not content with our fine dining on the train, we adventured over to Gott’s Roadside which our tour guide didn’t classify as fast food but a quick look at what we ate might suggest we had different definitions! Gott’s was another restaurant we had seen on Diners Drive-ins and Dives, so we were reluctant to miss it out of our itinerary. Luckily for us, it paid off. As of today, Matt is still claiming it was his best American burger.
