Day 3 in Calistoga was another busy day. I woke up early and ran 3M before breakfast. As usual, the breakfast at the Wine Way Inn was AMAZING! Gillian had her homemade granola and there was some fresh orange juice to start. The main dish was this GIANT pancake that was baked like a cake with apples in the middle. It was DIVINE. they served it with these delicious sausages. I normally am not a big pork person, and maybe it was my run, but I COULD NOT stop eating the sausage. They were so good. After breakfast we got ready and headed out for the day.
Our first stop was Castello di Amorosa.
Our friends NJ and Reyes had recommended we go there and since it had started raining we thought it would be the perfect time to visit “the castle”. Before we even bought our tickets and tasting fee I had already made a new friend! 
The tour was pretty cool. Highlight for me was that I was “crowned” queen of the castle so…yay! And our tour guide called out Doug for being a good boyfriend. The tour was a little pricy, but our tour guide was very entertaining. The only part of the tour where I did this:
was when our tour guide mentioned that an episode of The Bachelor had been filmed here and it was quite dramatic as one of the contestants had snuck into the Bachelor’s bed. While was rolling my eyes, the group of girls that were in town for a friend’s wedding were Freaking the Fuck out. So I just shot them a side eye and continued on the tour.
Doug and I CAREFULLY chose a bunch of different wines to try for the tasting and ended up buying a few bottles. Since I couldn’t find Ramona Pinot Grigio ANYWHERE in Napa, I settled for a bottle of Castello di Amorosa’s as well as a bottle of the il Brigante. I was also really into this dessert wine, Fantasia, which is SO unlike me. But I thought it would be a fun wine for a girls night or dinner party.
our tickets for the tour and tasting
our wine from Castello di Amorosa
After Castello di Amorosa, we headed down the street a ways to St. Clement. We found a coupon for a 2 for 1 tasting in a magazine so we thought we would check it out, and I’m glad we did. This was another boutique winery and we loved it. The staff was really nice, the view was beautiful and the wine was delicious. We loved all the wines they offered us and couldn’t decide which ones to buy so I did something neither of us have done: I joined a wine club. Doug also bought 6 bottles of wine, so that right there should tell you how awesome St. Clement is.
Since I joined the wine club, Doug got a steal of a deal on his wine and we also got a free tasting at the Beringer Wine Estate down the street. Since I found out the hard way the day before that we needed to eat between wineries, we decided to stop for lunch before heading to Beringer.
Doug had been at Tra Vigne the last time he was in Napa Valley so we decided to check it out. We had to wait a bit for a table (at lunch!?) but OMG it was totally worth it. We ordered this fresh mozzarella as an appetizer. It was seriously life changing. Like, my stomach is growling just typing this. So they fresh make your mozzarella when you order it and then a guy comes out with the mozzarella ball in a bowl and some toasted bread. He then cuts the mozzarella with scissors and places it on the bread. It’s like the simplest thing, but it was sooooooooo good. The bread was fresh and warm so the cheese like automatically melted when it hit the bread. So good. We had a pizza as our entrée, which was also good, but NOTHING can compare to that fresh mozzarella. It was so good.
seriously the best mozzarella. EVER.
After our lunch and cheese-fest, we headed up the street to Beringer. Beringer was a large winery and was pretty busy. Our wine gal at St. Clement suggested we do the reserve tasting since they have a lot of affordable (cheap) wines. The tasting was….meh. Doug ended up buying a bottle of the reserve wine, but the cheaper wines were just OK. They did have a fun gift shop that had this soap we kept on seeing. It smelled so good. I think both of us vowed that if we ever got a house, we would buy this soap for our guest bathroom.
When we were done with our Beringer tasting, we headed to our last winery of the trip– Duck Horn Winery. This was another place that we had a coupon for. I would say out of all the places we went to, Duck Horn had one of the most relaxing places to drink wine. The tasting room was house with a wrap around porch. By the time we got to the winery the rain had ended and the sun was starting to shine. Our tasting was so relaxing, well minus the group of old guys hitting on the group of older ladies at our surrounding tables. Doug and I had fun taking photos and just relaxing there. All the wines were really expensive and Doug remembered seeing Duck Horn wines at Costco, so we decided not to buy any. We also realized that we had bought too much wine for our 15 bottle box, so we spent the night eating left over pizza from lunch and enjoying some of our St. Clement wine.
view from Duck Horn Winery
Overall, I had a great time. There are so many more wineries that I want to visit and I feel that all my new wine knowledge has definitely classed me up a little. Well…I still probably drank all the wine like this:
*gifs from reality tv gifs. Seriously the most entertaining site ever.
