Harvest trip: Napa & Sonoma

Our first trip to Napa and Sonoma since 2014!

Other than a last-minute 2 day trip back in 2014, last week was our first "real" trip to wine country. I lean old world (and enjoy mainly red wine) but my wife and I, at the Atlanta High Museum Wine Auction, bid on a trip to Napa and won, so off we went!

I handled picking the wineries and my wife picked the restaurants. I picked tastings based on several criteria:

• Avoid the famous wineries

• Seek out under-the-radar producers

• Lean towards great (and different) tasting experiences vs just great wine

I reached out for recommendations from both friends and family and from hours of scouring reviews and tasting stories on CellarTracker. Gotta say I think we did a good job planning our visits because the trip was amazing and every experience was unique!

Wineries visited (in order):

Robert Sinskey, Vin Fraiche Group (Component Wine, State of Mind, etc.), Caldwell, Memento Mori, Almacerro, Vice Versa, Bruliam, Littorai, B Cellars, Impensata, Di Costanzo and Morlet.

Restaurants of note:

Angele, Grace's Table, Mustards Grill, Oenotri, In-N-Out Burger, Auberge Du Soleil, Charter Oak and Single Thread

Tasting notes will be just highlights of the wines that either stood out to me or that I remember - I didn't do any formal notes because we were just having too much fun!