We're On Cloud Wine

Today was so much fun - we spent the entire day in Napa Valley doing nothing but getting driven around from winery to winery and drinking all the wine.  We did our tour through Platypus and Dan was our driver, and both were amazing!  What I loved about Platypus is that they go to the lesser-known wineries so that you avoid crowds and the wine we had today was on point!  Also, they only have about 10 people on the tour.  It turns into a really fun atmosphere after the first winery where everyone is loosened up and willing to talk a little more.  Platypus also arranges for tastings at every stop, so we got individual attention at each winery which was really cool!  Dan was super helpful because after everyone on the tour bought wine at each place, he would take it out to the bus and he kept track of everything that everyone bought so that everyone left with the correct bottles.  This really was a great way to do Napa.  I was impressed all day with the sample pours in Napa - they were really nice pours and I was expecting about two sips worth of wine!  Also, since we were on a tour, we learned that we should ask to "revisit" some of our favorites to get a bonus pour or two and also if you asked nicely, you could usually talk the person into giving you a taste of another wine or two.  So on to the wineries...

Our first stop of the day was to Rutherford Ranch.  We had a reserved table for everyone on the tour and had our own host from the winery to walk us through the tasting.  The tasting we did was the tasting that was paired with locally made chocolate bark.  The wines were fantastic, the chocolate was fantastic, and the pairings together were fantastic.  Overall this was a great intro to Napa.

Rutherford Tasting

Our next stop was to Dutch Henry and this was a really cool winery.  They are a very small winery - only employing 7 people and they only make something like 3,000 cases of wine a year.  This was a really neat experience because they gave us a tour of their wine cave.  They store their barrels of wine in the cave and they even let us try some of "The Rooster" straight from the barrel.  Of the four wineries we went to today, they would probably be in that last slot as far as which ones I liked better, but they are still very good and a really fun tour!  Platypus provided us lunch with our tour, so we ended up having a picnic lunch there and we had time to walk the grounds a little bit, play Bocce ball and pet their kitty named Maybelline.

Cave entrance

Inside the cave

Trying wine straight from the barrel

Petting Maybelline

The third stop was to David Fulton Estate.  This was a fun time - the people who work the tastings are known for being very funny and they were!  It wasn't all "schtick" either because they had great wine to back it up too.  This was one where we got to try a few extra tastings of other wines, so I guess he really liked our group!  Another cool thing about this winery is that they are trying to market to the younger crowd, so they actually have a series of wines called Trending Wines and all the wines are named with a hashtag:  #bromance and #selfie to name a couple.  #bromance was actually pretty tasty too!  One of the bonus wines we tasted was an ice wine that our host called the "Tears of Jesus."  He wasn't kidding - this stuff was heavenly!

David Fulton tasting station 

Me inside a huge wine barrel; also the one-horse plow in front was invented by David Fulton

Pretty scenery

The last stop was probably my favorite of the day, Flora Springs.  They had my favorite wine from the whole day which was their Malbec.  This was another winery where we had a tour on the grounds, including their wine cave as well which was much bigger than Dutch Henry's.  They are known for a red blend called Trilogy and it was delicious!

The view

Inside the cave - much bigger than Dutch Henry

Us inside the cave

Us with the view

The cave entrance

Otis the 4-month old Aussie puppy totally stole the show!

After the wine tour, we went to HopMonk for dinner because we clearly didn't have enough alcohol today.  We tried their house beers with dinner, but we should have probably stuck to wine.  Overall though, a great day and we're off to go whale watching in the morning and then hitting a couple parks in the afternoon.

HopMonk house beers