Visiting Napa on Vacation

While on Vacation in California, we celebrated July 4th with family and friends doing a nice wine tour of the Napa Valley. I think the best way to tell about the 3 wineries we visited was to show a few shots of the wineries. Did I mention we drove a ton, especially for Swiss standards.

(The view as we drove into Napa Valley.)

The day started off leaving by 9am to arrive in the Napa Valley before 10:30am. We picked up my very good friend Sylvie along the way. I had actually met her in Switzerland in 2002 and we have been friends ever since. Actually it gets even more ironic. We grew up in the same city in California and now her parents have moved to Napa.

The tour started up at Sterling Winery. We wanted to take the tour before 12:30pm so we could get the $5 discount. Arriving early was well worth it because Napa was getting very hot! 100F or about 35C.

(This is the tram, made in Switzerland which zooms you up to the top of the mountain.)

(P's view from our tram car.)

P, Sylvie and I after the start of tasting at Sterling Winery. The tour included the tram ride up and a self guided tour with 5 samples of some incredible wines. We brought back 2 types of wines from Sterling in fact.

The tram ride down from Sterling - doesn't it look dry??

Our second tour was at Clos Pegase after a quick stop for lunch. Clos Pegase offers a free tour and lots of looking around the winery. It was next to empty on this Fourth of July Holiday too.

The cool Clos Pegase cave where they age the wine is naturally 60F all year long.
Boy was that nice since it was well over 102F outdoors!

The Last Stop - The Hess Collection

A look at this Swiss Winery which has an amazing art collection, beautiful views and wine, chocolate wine and other special wine based sauces. The bad thing is they don't allow photography inside the winery.

But visit The Hess website and my flower photo for a few more views of water lilies and vineyards of Clos Pegase.

It was a great way to end the day..
We actually were invited to speak French and meet Sylvie's family for dinner.
What a great time!
Talk about a beautiful Independence Day!