A View from the Castle - Castello di Amorosa
Everyone knows this is one of my favorite places to visit in the Napa Valley! This is the "sister" winery of Sattui. Darryl Sattui built his dream, Castello di Amorosa, which I have watched emerge from the hills in Calistoga for a number of years. I have several sets of pics on my wine country blog from sneaking up to watch the construction in process when I would visit Napa. He really put his heart, soul, and retirement into this project. It's an authentic replica of an Italian castle, except I remember from one of the tours that the moat isn't quite exact since he would've had to have a lifeguard on duty if it was! LOL. I was just here at the castle in November with Liz (Quest) and really wished Brett had been there to see it since its the site of the formal Harvest Ball.
Due to time constraints, we opted not to do the full tour but just the reserve tasting and wander the grounds a bit ourselves. For Brett living in Europe with "real" castles, this would probably not be as impressive but I still love it! We walked around a little and listened to one of the tour groups passing by, discussing the various regions of Napa Valley and Mount St. Helena. After snapping a few shots, we went down to the tasting room which was rather crowded.
With the reserve tasting, I think we ended up trying 9 different wines, all of which were good. Last time I was there with Liz, I opted for the red flight only so this was nice to try a few of their whites. I had bought their Merlot/Cab blend, Il Brigante, the last time I was there with Liz.
It was awesome to try their reserve Cab after having the other one the night before at our B&B. After finishing up with our tasting and Brett on the hunt for his magnet, we figured out we could possibly hit one more winery on the way back down - Peju has been highly recommended and we knew they stayed open until 6pm so it was worth a shot!
On the way down the hill headed back towards St Helena, we stopped briefly just so Brett could take a couple pics of the Beringer Winery house. The historic house (California designed historical site) is one of the oldest wineries in Napa and the house is said to be patterned after a German house on the Rhine Valley. When Liz and I visited in November, it was decorated for the holidays and beautiful lights on at dusk (see my regular wine country blog for pics).
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