This past weekend my husband and I took a weekend trip to San Francisco for a mini vacation.  We researched the must do’s while there and saw Napa Valley was about 90 minutes north and of course we had to visit.   I drove through Napa Valley as a child on the way to my grandparents house but being a kid I didn’t quite appreciate the beauty.  Too busy asking, “Are we there yet” hahahaha.  So as an adult I get to experience the true pleasure of Napa Valley and really appreciate how gorgeous it is.  Of course I took lots and lots of pictures, only a small fraction are being posted.  And my husband enjoyed too wine tastings, are favorite being Sterlings Vineyards.  Honestly I’m not sure of the name of the other one.  All I know it as is the huge castle across from Sterling.  It was really gorgeous to see.  We did self guided tours in both, which was great for us because we could really stop and stare at the beauty around us and enjoy the wine we were tasting.  Both vineyards allowed 5 tastings with the tour we purchased and all were so good.  Of course we bought wine and shared it with my aunt and uncle during dinner that night.  Napa Valley reminded my husband and I so much of Tuscany and we felt like we were on our honeymoon again.  So romantic for us and nice to have a relaxing day.  It’s nice to get away and just enjoy a stress free day with each other.

At Sterling Wineries we were able to learn a little bit about the wine making process.  I have relatives that make wine but they are pretty distant relatives and I don’t remember much from being a child and hearing my grandfather talk about making wine, so it was really interesting.

We had to take a tram up the mountain to the Sterling Tasting Room and the view is so incredible.

We drove around just a bit before heading over to the 2nd winery for a little more wine tasting.  It’s so picteresque that I was in heaven and snapping away 🙂

This is the driveway up to the Castle Vineyard, yeah its stunning!!!

Edit – My aunt informed me this winery is Castello di Amorosa 🙂

We had a blast joking around with Paolo while we tried the different wines.  I favor more of the white/blushes and Ray favors the reds so we would switch and taste each other’s as well.  Here we also had a couple of pieces of Belgian chocolates that really complemented the wines.

The view from the top of the castle.

Being a photographer in Dallas we don’t really have rolling hills so I had to take as many pictures as possible 🙂