Quintessa is a beautiful winery - not to mention excellent stuff... You need to make an appointment there and they offer lunch tours etc. If you need help there - I'm a rather "good" customer... and can certainly make a call for you.
Pahlmeyer doesn't do tastings - great wine but no go on the visitors...
One of the most interesting buildings and stories... is Nickel and Nickel. Their wines are crazy complicated because they do single vineyard bottling and I think there's like 29 or so... So you can't just go by the BRAND... Some we like - some we think suck.
Kapcsandy is in Yountville.... they do some unfiltered stuff that needs to be handled a little differently than your average bottle of wine...
We like Duckhorn... but I've never been to their winery
If you feel like you really want to step up your game...
Araujo and Colgin Estate.... bring a wheelbarrow... but they're yummy and worth the price.
Caymus is another one that Gwen likes....
And probably the rarest hardest to get wine in our cellar is REVANA
We also have a lot of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars in the cellar... it's good drinkable wine that's "reasonable" given what Gwen likes... and they are always having sales with ONE PENNY shipping - which I like to take advantage of.
I don't drink... but used to (30 years in AA now)... and we have a small cellar with about 1600 bottles in it... Gwen and her friends like their wine! I don't know much but I have a good nose. I can go to a tasting and smell the stuff and tell her which one she's going to want to buy. The cellar is all about "inventory" so she's drinking '06's or '07's when the stores are selling '09's and '10's stomped yesterday. LOL
She cooks with wine - sometimes she even puts some in the food.
WINE! It's how classy people get wasted!
ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE NAPA VALLEY
Then if you want to have a little fun -- and try your hand at driving a twisty --- jump over the "Oakville Grade Rd" to see B.R. Cohn in the SONOMA Valley. Bruce Cohn is a hot rodder and a buddy and he is owner of the winery.... and also just happens to be the manager of the Doobie Brothers... lots of guitars and pics of stuff there besides just wine stuff.
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