Silvia

Hi - just returned from a long weekend in Napa and Sonoma...they are both beautiful and worth a visit. I highly recommend visiting the following wineries: Napa: Pride Mountain, Sterling, Joseph Phelps; Sonoma: Mantanzas Creek, Gundlach-Bundschu, Chateau St. Jean. We also loved our stay at the El Dorado in Sonoma.

As far as dining, we had a wonderful lunch at the Cantinetta (next to Tra Vigne) in Napa, we also had a nice lunch at V. Sattui in Napa. We had dinner at Terra (Napa) and were disappointed in the service and food. In Sonoma, we grabbed lunch at Viansa in the square and ate it on the grounds at Chateau St. Jean. We had dinner at the Girl and the Fig, the food and service were okay, nothing great. Next time, I will try Cafe La Haye or Meritage.

Sheli

Silvia:

Glad to hear you had such a great trip! We are leaving the 24th for 5 days in Sonoma/Napa (only 21 more days!)

A couple of questions for you:

1) did you do other activities/sites besides touring wineries? If so, what?

2) how casual/dressey were your dining (evening) experiences? We tried to get into French Laundry...but missed the 2 month wait list by hours...so we will be doing dining options a bit less elegant than orginally planned. What is appropriate to wear in the evenings to the places you mentioned?

3) If you don't want to answer this you don't have to but...how much cash per person do you think is reasonable to spend in a day on wineries, lunch and other incidentals (not including dinner)

4) Did you have your own car, rent a car or some other form of transportation while in the valleys?

5) Did you purchase large quantities of wine and have it shipped home? Is this possible? Or, do I have to carry what I buy on the plane home?

Thanks so much for your help! We are really looking forward to our trip!

Sheli

Susan

Silvia, can you give more info on the El Dorado? How are the rooms? Does it seem like the kind of place one could take kids?

And Sheli, I think I can answer your question. Some states will allow you to ship wine to them and others won't. Where you live will determine if you can ship wine home.

Ter

Hi Sheli,

If you want to explore a little outside of Napa, shoot over to Marin County and check out Muir Woods/Stinson Beach/Point Reyes. SF is about an hour's drive south (or drive to Larkspur and take the ferry); if you want a dining experience similar to French Laundry, try Charles Nob Hill or Masa's in the city (I actually prefer Charles Nob Hill to French Laundry).

You can easily have your wine shipped home. Also, I would definitely rent a car, but plan on having a designated driver if you'll be doing a lot of tasting. Have fun!

Sheli

Thank you Susan & Ter

I was not aware that shipping wine home might be a problem. I did a bit 'o searching on the web and found this site (might be helpful to others) which tell me I can only ship home 1 case of wine per month and only FedEx will ship to my state. Interesting. I didn't know there were such laws concerning my personal stash of wine!

http://www.wineinstitute.org/shipwine/

We do plan to do a lot of tasting...so the DD will be a must!

Thanks so much for your help!

Sheli

Likes

Sheli

You are lucky. In Maryland it is a felony for a wine producer to ship wine dirctly to a consumer.

CC

Same thing in Massachusetts.