Today is our last day in Napa Valley, so we are tying up some loose ends and then heading on to San Francisco! We had a fantastic breakfast, packed up, and then went off to go to the final wineries of the trip. We were going to make our way up to Healdsburg to J. Rickards, my best friend's favorite winery. Our plan was to stop along interesting wineries along the way, with no real plan.
Our first stop was Cosentino, because we had a coupon for 2 free tastings.
This place was actually really good, and I ended up getting a bottle of wine here for a gift. It is their zinfandel, which is so unlike other zinfandels we have tried. It is super fruity and delicious, with just the right amount of complexity and tannins.
We also had a coupon for Alpha Omega and I am SO glad we decided to stop here, it turned out to be one of the best wineries of the whole trip.
This place was so fantastic, and we had an amazing pourer. He was impressed with us because we were actually TASTING the wines and not just drinking them to get tipsy. He called the dump bucket the "bucket for designated drivers" and the "bucket of common sense" which we totally agreed with.
We told him we were on our honeymoon and he gave us the special treatment. He let us come into the barrel room and taste $175 wine straight from the bottle! :o
Let me just say - this wine was fantastic! The whole experience was completely amazing and we loved every second of Alpha Omega. We ended up buying a fairly expensive wine here ($69) because it was so delicious, and plan to age it for 5 to 10 years and drink it on our anniversary.
This is definitely a place we would join the wine club for when we are older, as most of their wines are a bit pricey for us. All the wines here were VERY good though! Unfortunately, they don't distribute to Texas, but if for some reason I ever see them, I will definitely buy more in the future. DELICIOUS!
We were running out of time a bit, but definitely had to stop at Costello del Amarosa, which is famed for its castle winery.
The scenery here was absolutely amazing, and I would have loved to take a tour, but we didn't have time. Also, we heard the wine here was fairly average, so it was worth skipping.
Finally, we drove up to the Healdsburg area, which is north of Sonoma and Napa. We had originally planned to spend an entire day here, but realized we would not do the area justice, and decided to just come visit it next time we came up to wine country (which hopefully will be within a year or two). Our main stop was J. Rickards.
This winery was so different from the places we had just been to. For one thing, there was no tasting fee. The winery was very small, and we actually got to meet the owner, Jim Rickards! It was very small and seemed very homey. Everyone was SUPER nice!
We actually loved everything we tried here, and the server even gave us a FREE bottle of moscato because it was our favorite and we were on our honeymoon. She was great at giving us tastes at whatever we wanted, and very friendly. We ended up buying 4 bottles of wine here, plus the free one, which is the most we have bought from any place. The prices here were also fantastic, averaging about $20 a bottle.
I'm actually a bit regretful we did not have more time in this area. Kris told us most wineries up here had the same laid back style with minimal tasting fees and super nice people. Sadly, we were out of time and had to get to San Francisco, so had to leave the area. :( We have been borrowing Kris' car, so met up to him to give it back and chat a bit.
He dropped us off at our hotel and we checked in. Here is the view from our 27th floor room!
We were starving and wanted to go some place quick, so decided to go to the San Francisco mall which was practically next door. They have a gourmet food court with lots of delicious food, so we decided to go there.
We also wanted to go swimming, so looked around all over the mall for a swimsuit. I can't believe I forgot all my swimsuits at home! Oh well, it's July... so there should be lots right? WRONG! It's San Francisco and nobody goes swimming here lol. I finally found one super on sale at Bloomingdales almost by chance and got a $118 swimsuit for like $35!
Later that night, we were feeling hungry again, so we went to a local diner and got some regular normal food. Grilled cheese and fries!
And some clam chowder!
We also went looking around the city for a good place to buy a bottle of wine for tonight and after the marathon. We found the Press Club, which has somewhat fancy bottles, and ran across a Miner Family sangiovese that we thought would be pretty good, since we liked their other ones.
I think that's pretty much it for our first day in San Francisco!
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