2006-07-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and headed north for Napa Valley. We chose to drive the long route so we could get a chance to see the Golden Gate Bridge

(Remember- click on ANY picture to see it FULL Size!)

INTO NAPA

We headed to the north side of the Napa Valley area to a Champagnery (or Sparkling Winery) called Schramsberg. It is a prestigious and well known winery with lots of cool history. We had made an appointment to take the tour so we journeyed in the caves to learn about the art of champagne making.

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(top.left) Although large wine barrels are not used anymore for the wine making process, they did have some on display with the company logo on them.

The champagne is actually fermented over several years in its bottle and stacked in caves to keep it at a cool constant temp. Once it is ready, it is placed in the riddling racks (below on left) for the finishing processes.

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The tour ended in the cave with a tasting of 5 of the different champagnes that they make at Schramsberg.

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From there we drove down the Silverado Trail (a beautiful country road) and stopped in at the next winery that we chose based on our research for the trip- Rombauer Vineyards .

This winery was small and had a very personal feel. We enjoyed several tastes of the wines with no tasting fee. ( I suppose if you know your wine is good enough you know that the people will buy it - and we did :-)

After awhile we decided to get to one more place before we called it a day.

Next Stop RutherfordHill Winery

Once again this place was a pleasant surprise place the we chose based off of reviews and were glad that we visited.

Although did have to pay a tasting fee we received the complimentary wines glasses (in picture above). We decided to take a walk around the grounds of the vineyard and explore all the beauty.

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Michele is standing in front of the lattice work they designed to cover up where the hill was dug out for the wine caves- we thought it was a pretty good cover up!

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One interesting story is that while we were hanging out at the winery and talking with others there, we met a couple that was close our age and was visiting from Chicago. After chatting for about a half hour we decided to all go to dinner together at a near by restaurant - below is the group picture of our new friends.

After a wonderful dinner we said goodbye to our friends and went to check in at our bed and Breakfast just down the road. We stayed in a Suite at the Bel Abri- and we loved it!! The best part was the giant Jacuzzi Tub - built for 2!!

The Bel Abri was truly wonderful place to stay- a great way to celebrate our 1st anniversary!

unfortunately all good things must come to an end- so after a wonderful breakfast that was delivered to our room the next morning we packed the car for a lazy 12:00 check out to head to airport- however there was one more California thing we needed to do before we left- so we stopped for lunch at an In and Out- it was GREAT!

That is all for our anniversary trip to CA- we hope you enjoyed the pictures!

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Next Stop Napa Valley CA