Who doesn’t love Napa? No one, that’s who. This year, my long time best friend, Alison, and I decided to celebrate 27 years of friendship by spending a weekend in wine country. One of my favorite weekend trips, I highly recommend spending some time in both the Napa and Sonoma valleys. On this particular trip, we headed off for a three-day weekend starting in the Alexander Valley region, and ending in downtown Napa at the lovely Andaz hotel.
I’m a wine club member at Medlock Ames winery, so we first stopped there for a tour of the vineyard and tasting, before their 1920’s themed pickup party. The vineyard is located off Chalk Hill Road, and is completely organic. After touring the vines and adjacent garden, we headed out to dinner at Diavola Pizza, where you can get extraordinary pizza cooked in a stone oven (and they offer gluten free options). We then back to my friend’s guest cottage to prepare for our party. The party, held at the tasting room in Healdsburg, did not disappoint. Vintage cars, a band and delicious food provided us with a relaxing, unique experience in the gardens at the tasting room.
Playing with vintage cars at the Medlock Ames tasting room. Photo credit: Alison Lohse
The following day we headed down into the Napa Valley. One thing I highly recommend here is eating at the Oxbow Market. If you’re gluten free like me, you’ll have plenty of options. C Casa offers not only gluten free breakfast tacos and lunch/dinner food – but also has plenty of gluten free pastries you can take with you on the road, and even gluten free baguettes! There’s also a wonderful spice market in Oxbow and great coffee at Ritual Coffee Roasters.
Nice post! We live in Napa Valley and spend a fair amount of time in Sonoma as well. You hit all of my favorites, including C Casa, which I refuse to Tweet or blog about because it’s too damn busy already! If you promise not to tell anyone, there’s also a cool new places on Old Sonoma Road called Southside that is great for breakfast/brunch. Ritual is a top 3 coffee place anywhere, in m opinion. Some days we have breakfast and dinner at C Casa because we just love it that much. Thanks for sharing. Check out our wine country blog: http://www.topochinesvino.com. Follow us if you like what you see.