A day trip to Napa Valley

On Saturday morning, shortly after breakfast, we headed towards Napa Valley. I plan to write a separate blog post about Napa Valley soon, similar to what I did years ago for Sonoma County. By now, we’ve explored quite a few vineyards and wine regions, and I’d like to compile them all into a guide.

On the way to Napa Valley, we always like to make a pit stop in the town of Napa to grab something at Model Bakery – sometimes it’s a bread pudding, sometimes a muffin (or both). I highly recommend their coffee.

From Napa, it’s only about a 15-minute drive to Odette Estate Winery, where we were invited to a new tasting. I’ve already shared about my experience there earlier this week.

After the wine tasting, we were hungry. Plus, it was getting increasingly hot (the weather in Napa and partly in Sonoma is noticeably warmer and less windy than in San Francisco). So, you can sit in the sun here all year round and enjoy the different microclimates of the wine-growing regions. We drove back to Yountville to have dinner at the North Block Yountville’s Hotel Restaurant – a great decision because between 3 and 5 p.m. there’s Happy Hour every day (except for Monday and Tuesday when they are closed), where we could stuff ourselves with delicious pizza and other goodies (and pay only a fraction of what we had originally planned). I also recommend the cocktails, which were offered for $10 during Happy Hour.