Our Trip to Napa and San Francisco: Part 2

This is the second installment of our trip to Napa.

I’m going to let you all in on all the details of our time in the northern part of the Napa region. This mainly includes Calistoga and St. Helena.

On our way north we ventured onto the Silverado Highway and visited Mumm. We did have a reservation here, but I think we could have walked in. This is all sparkling wine, and was fun and relaxing. Plus, who can turn down champagne?!

This is a million times more glamorous than my everyday life. 😉 

We checked into our air bnb in Calistoga after this. We stayed in a small cottage on the owner’s property. They live in the main house, but we only saw them a couple of times for a few minutes. It was quaint and charming, and right in the middle of vineyards! The owner has set up a beautiful area to sit outside. The setting was almost too good to be true. The cottage was not fancy, but we loved it. It was very clean and wall taken care of. It has a small kitchen, so we made our breakfasts and coffee there. We would definitely stay there again. It is only 1 bedroom, so it’s perfect for a couple.

Plus, Chateau Montelena was literally right across the street! We walked there that afternoon for a tasting. If you’re interested in the history of how the wine industry really took off in Napa, you should definitely visit this place. Plus, the grounds are beautiful, with a swan in the pond and everything.

We had reservations that night at Goose & Gander for 8 pm. Well…after tasting wine all day, we decided we were ready for dinner at 5:30. So we drove to St. Helena, and thankfully they were able to seat us on the patio. This was another beautiful setting. Try this place, if only for the cocktails!

We stopped by the small grocery store that night for chips and guacamole (classy, right?) and coffee creamer. #lifenecessities

The following morning we had a reservation at Sterling. We went here mainly for the air tram ride and the views we’d see. It ended up being really enjoyable. I’d recommend the silver tour. If it’s your first time to Napa, I’d say you should go here.

That afternoon we visited our favorite winery of the trip: Larkmead. We loved each place we visited, honestly, but this one was just something else. It was seriously gorgeous, and the guy who gave us the tour was informative and kind. He also told us that the designer of the Pottery Barn flagship stores is who designed their buildings! No wonder it was so lovely. This vineyard has a really neat story as well. We ended up ordering some wine from here, because it was just so special.

Speaking of buying wine, if you do buy some at the wineries, you’ll need one of these wine skins. These keep wine bottles safe in your suitcase. I wish I hard ordered some before we went! We ended up purchasing one at a winery, because we didn’t bring one with us.

Next we went to Rombauer for a tasting. We had a reservation here. They took some walk-ins, but most people had a reservation. It was quite busy and much more of a lively atmosphere. Although that may have been because everyone there had been tasting wine all day! We had tried their chardonnay at my parents’ house before, and they recommended it, so we wanted to try a tasting there. The rose gardens were beautiful, and we still enjoyed the chardonnay.

We had reservations for dinner at Bottega that night, but instead of driving back down to Yountville, we decided to try Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch. Because it was early, we were able to get a table without a reservation. The food here was wonderful, and it was another beautiful setting! They even brought us a glass of champagne for our anniversary!

Clearly we loved this beet salad. Couldn’t wait to dig in before snapping a picture. 

We had the craziest Uber driver on the way back to our air bnb. He was nice, but we suppressed laughter the whole time. 

Speaking of Uber, we were able to take them in Calistoga. They were a little more sparse, but still available!

Those were our days in Calistoga and St. Helena. We stayed another night at the air bnb, then headed out the next morning for San Francisco. I will cover all of that next week!