Touring the Castle in Napa Valley

Last week we spent a few days in Napa as the guests of Dan's former co-workers. On Tuesday we went on a hike northeast of Calistoga. It was a rainy Wednesday and we spent part of the afternoon on a tour of the Castello di Amorosa Winery.              The Castle was designed by Dario Sattui who modeled it after European 13th Century castles that fascinated him.

               His blog tells about the evolution of his plan and the construction. The original plan in 1993 was for 8500 square feet, but by the time the Castle was complete in 2007, it was 136,000 square feet with 107 rooms and eight levels, four of which are below ground.            Sattui brought builders, brick-workers, and others from Europe and shipped containers full of old bricks, doors, hardware, and all kinds of other building materials that had been sourced from old castles in Europe.               Although my first thought when I heard about this place was that I would the resent pretentiousness of spending this much money and "showing off", but this is a fascinating place and it is very cool to visit it.              The Great Hall.          There is an authentic 13th century fireplace at the end of the Great Hall. The guide told us that those two chairs are "authentic replicas"--they were left behind by a movie company who used this setting.            Dan noticed all of the iron work. All of it, including the bolts and nails was hand made.                 Stone is all hand-chiseled.

            After walking through some of those ground-level rooms we saw the equipment that is used in modern wine-making.

             But then we went downstairs into the lower levels.         There are 900 feet of caves in four levels.

            This barrel room is constructed with impressive brick Roman cross-vaulted ceilings.             Barrel tasting in the barrel room.                  I will admit here that I am not a wine drinker. Dan and I were both more interested in the tour than the wine tasting but we stayed for that too. There were only about a dozen of us and the guide-turned-wine-expert poured about 8 or 9 different wines to sample.                  I finally found a wine that I liked...                 ... and I'll admit that it's sweet and a little fizzy so I might as well just buy fizzy juice at Safeway, right?               Leaving the castle. This door reminds me of the one in the Wizard of Oz moviewhere the wizard opens the little panel to look through at Dorothy.             View from the Castle to the hills where we hiked the day before.

After leaving we headed back down the valley. Someone had suggested a tour or a stop at the CIA. My first thought was that would be interesting since I read a lot of suspense/intrigue books, but a CIA headquarters in Napa? It didn't take me too long to get the context--Culinary Institute of America. I had driven by this for years, first as the Christian Brothers Winery, but had never gone in.

                   I took one photo and then my phone died. So this is it--one of hundreds of odd corkscrews and other wine related gadgets. You know, the feet are some of the few parts of the butcher lambs that aren't used at this time. Could this be in my future?