Favorite restaurants and wineries

Gloria Ferrer in Sonoma - great champagne tour, nice cafe with good food and wonderful patio view of the valley.

my favorite winery is Failla. its very small, and you often get to taste with one of the owners. their wines are top notch. its hard to find though, as they don't have a huge sign, just a red mailbox on Silverado trail. I also really enjoyed Sinsky and Clos Du Bois. Sterling is a must for first time visitors due to the gondola ride and views alone

quote:

---

Rutherford Hill Winery - the desert wine and chocolate blueberries were worth it.

---

that was delicious. I don't really care for blueberries or chocolate. yet I bought a bag of them anyway

And you've done this?

So you lied. Classy!

I'm in my twenties, i do what i have to do

quote:

---

I bet you torrent and steal movies and music too, right?

---

nope, sure don't.

Wineries:
There are hundreds, but some of the ones that stand out from our recent trip are:
-Viader - awesome view and damn good wine
-Joseph Phelps - see above
-Larkmead - great wine
-Swanson - fun tasting, a little different

Make appointments for all of them.

Restaurants:
-Bottega was great
-Brix was a great brunch
-Ad Hoc was so-so
-Redd was very cool
-Gott's Roadside - must visit. Cool little roadside burger place in St. Helena.

Have fun!

Thanks for input guys

quote:

---

Go ahead and make your list for the OP.

---

I know nothing about Napa.

Okay, seriously, I would second Viader and also Phelps. Sure, Phelps is a relatively big commercial operation, but the winery sits on one of the most beautiful parcels of land in the valley. Going there for the scheduled tasting, later in the afternoon is hard to beat. I love the restaurant at Meadowood. It's fantastic and relative to FL and some other places in the area, it's a bargain. I also like Bottega, Terra, Bouchon of course, and brunch at Ad Hoc on Saturday or Sunday is a real treat. Cantinetta Pietro is a good lower priced alternative in Yountville if you can't get into Bottega and crave Italian. In the town of Napa, for low cost eats, you have to go to Oxbow Market. It's basically a food mall. C Casa is outfricking standing Mexican food, fresh and incredibly tasty. I'd knock Mrs Coolpapa over if she got between me and their lamb or their buffalo tacos. It's great. The Fatted Calf is also there, though you have to walk around the corner to get to it. It's a fantastic butcher, with awesome sandwiches. They make pretty much everything there and it's the one place in the Napa Valley that if I lived there, I would visit at least once a week. The stuff in the cold case is just incredible. If I were a person of lower moral character, I would fricking rob that place and clean it out. Seriously, those guys are my heros. Every town should have a butcher like that place.

As far as wine goes, most wineries in Napa no longer make wine in a style that I care for. If you want to taste a wide variety of different wines, go to the Napa Wine Co. They are a custom crush facility on the Oakville Crossroad at Hwy 29 and a lot of boutique wineries make their wines there so you can taste them in the tasting room. It's probably the best place to taste 40-50 wines in one spot, though I think they charge for the tastings. I went to Alpha Omega a couple of times and liked it. They make Cab and Chard and some other stuff and the wines are generally well made across the board, plus the facility is kind of cool. As for buying wine, I wouldn't in Napa, but if you find yourself in Sonoma County, go to the Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa. Probably the best prices and selection in northern California, though it's not the most organized place I've ever been.

ETA, just saw you're going to Sonoma. Go to Ridge Vineyards, Rochioli (call first to make sure they're actually pouring), and David Coffaro, not to be confused with Caffaro, and Joseph Swan. Coffaro is a lunatic, who makes a bunch of blended wines, but he's a hoot and the wines are tasty and inexpensive. He'll also talk your ear off about winemaking if you have any interest in that.

Hope this helps, happy to answer questions if you have any.