Napa-Sonoma Wine Tasting 10/12

We made our first visit at Van Der Heyden Vineyards, a favorite stop along the Silverado Trail.

The fermenting tanks are conveniently located outside for easy access.

You park out front next to the vines and walk in to the tasting room nearby.

Van Der Heyden stays open later than most Napa wineries, and that had a lot to do with our first visit.

The outdoor spaces have moved more upscale for guests (from previous visits).

We received a great welcome in the tiny tasting room.

Before we finished we were joined by several others. We decided to join their wine club, the second ever, because the wines we love quickly run out.

It's been years since we've been to Robert Mondavi Winery, so we decided to drop in.

The standard and reserved tasting rooms have a wonderful view of the Napa Valley.

Their most appreciated vineyard is in their back yard - a beautiful location.

Ripe grapes - the crush is on!

Beautiful, and delicious, focus of all the activity.

The grounds and gardens of Ferrari-Carano Vineyards are very formal and upscale.

Villa Fiore houses the hospitality spaces and the wine caves for casks.

We were told that rubbing the nose of the Boar would bring good luck.

Nice sculptures were around.

We like the Vinturi wine aerator - this one is on the stand.

In the standard tasting room there were many wine-related items available for purchase.

We had scheduled a tour - a really good idea.

Wonderful views in Dry Creek Valley.

This is a cork tree in the garden.

The winery harvests the cork bark and uses it to make corks used some of the bottling.

Lots of oak is used in their process.

Stainless steel for handling wine and fermentation.

The amount of toasting is marked on each barrel along with the contents.

A really large press was only one of several.

This is what I'm talking about - visiting the winery during the crush. The aromas and flavors were wonderful!

Visiting the grapes, up front and personal.

Grapes used in making their wines are collected from multiple varieties and climates around Wine Country.

The pruning of the vines produces amazingly consistent results.

Grapes enter the winemaking process here.

The bins full of grapes are dumped in here and transported to the stemmer.

The stemmer removes vines and stems before the grapes move on.

Grapes and skins are pumped up into the tall tanks (20,000 pounds each) .

These were their first tanks, rather less ambitious in size.

The tanks lead to the presses where the wine is released.

The path to one of the presses.

The chardonnay is aged in oak. The clear heads allow us to see the malolactic fermentation underway.

The resulting wine continues aging.

The reserved wines are aged in the "cave" under the Villa, next to the reserved wine tasting room.

We stopped at the French bakery in Healdsburg for lunch - everything was wonderful.

We really liked the faux-French branding.

This fence had to be a lot of work.

Both of the Francis Ford Coppola Winery locations have a Tucker car on display.

I wonder if, like Tesla, Tucker called the forward storage space a "frunk", behind the steerable middle light.

A large, comfortable rear-engine car

Very creative to turn old movie film reels into wine racks.