Napa Valley Photography and New Years Vacation

Welcome to Napa Valley sign we saw on our Highway 29 drive

My fiance and I just took our first official "grown up" vacation together (a.k.a paying for it ourselves) to Napa Valley,CA. While we had some ups and downs, I was able to take a ton of pictures and thought I'd share some of them.

Our first day in Napa we had a hotel in the downtown area and decided to visit the Oxbow Market for lunch. The market had a ton of locally made food and products which made it really interesting to browse through while working up an appetite. We decided to have some oysters for lunch and stopped at Hog Island Oyster Co. for a bite to eat, our oyster sampler was accompanied by Domaine Chandon champagne, all of which was delicious.

Domaine Chandon sparkling wine accompanied our oyster lunch

Oyster sampler from Hog Island Oyster Co.

After lunch we made our way to the first winery on our list, Chimney Rock in Napa, CA. Their cabernet sauvignon was awesome and the property was gorgeous to boot. We had a great time walking around the property and the staff was really informative.

Water feature at Chimney Rock Winery in Napa, CA

Over the next couple of days we were able to visit a bunch of different wineries, and though they made different styles of wine, they all shared amazing views.

Our hands down favorite winery of the trip was Pride Mountain Winery in St Helena, CA. Their wine is ridiculously good, like seriously amazing. This was also the first winery we were able to do a cave tour with, during which we were able to do a barrel tasting (where you taste maturing wine). The views, the wine, and everything about this winery were outstanding and all the places we visited after this seemed to fall just shy of this amazing place.

We also spent a beautiful part of the afternoon at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa, CA. We weren't able to do a tasting since we were running to another reservation, but the vineyards were beautiful here.

Beautiful foliage on the vines at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa, CA

Our last winery visit was to Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, CA. It's a huge castle that was built using stone brought in from Italy and built using traditional medieval materials and methods where possible. The all the details were true to a 13th century castle (including dungeons and a torture chamber) which made visiting here feel like we had stepped back in time.

Moat and castle view at Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, CA

There were many more wineries we visited and pictures that were taken, but I know I've already run on.

Hope you enjoyed!
Be sure to follow me on instagram @rocky092 for more travel and winery posts

Outside of the Beringer Winery tasting room