On Wednesday, we went over the Bay Bridge (the new span!) the second day it was open:
We had brunch in Sonoma, and then we got down to business tasting the wines. We started at Imagery Estate Winery, where a fast-talking dude who said “Absolutely!” way too frequently talked quickly about different wines. I did not care about wine.
We went to Domaine Chandon and had champagne. It was very fancy there.
We went to Rombauer Vineyards, which had some beautiful flowers and a pretty view:
We went to Dutch Henry Winery, where there were bonus animals. Josie wanted to eat these bonus chickens:
I did not develop a taste for wine while tasting wine. Brent and Juliette tried to pick a winery with sweeter wine for our last winery, so we tried Raymond Vineyards. They were not dog-friendly, and the tasting menu did not have the sweet stuff on it, so we just walked around a little and saw a bunch of French Bulldog-centric signage:
Also of note, Raymond Vineyards is going biodynamic, which apparently means planting in sync with the phases of the moon. Um, OK.
I think these might be biodynamic grapes:
We tried to go to the Oxbow Market, but it was not dog-friendly either. We went to our hotel (Embassy Suites) and called maintenance to have them “fix” our TV by unplugging it and plugging it back in. Then we sat outside and enjoyed the rest of the champagne/some wine/cheese/complimentary cocktails for a while, all the while dealing with the flies that came with having these swans in the courtyard pond:
Then! A highlight! Faithful reader Mike (I’ll make it sound like I have random readers who find out where I’m going to be and demand face time with me, I have no shame) came up to Napa to hang out with me. We had dinner and drinks and lovely conversation. Hooray!