Off to the Napa Valley today. After tasting some of the beautiful wines from this region in one of our wine club gatherings I was really looking forward to visiting this part of the world, and I was not disappointed.
Napa County is a county north of San Francisco. It’s known for hundreds of hillside vineyards in the Napa Valley wine region. In the city of Napa, Oxbow Public Market features regional gourmet food. We stopped here and had a delicious bagel for lunch. The markets were full of gourmet foods and homewares, and we were able to sample many of the foods here.
Then on to the Castillo de Amorosa commonally know as the”Castle” in Calistoga. Sue and Tom are members here and we were treated to an amazing tasting in the castle.
Castello di Amorosa is the realization of an all-consuming passion. Fourth generation winemaker Dario Sattui built an authentically styled 14th century Tuscan castle winery to honour his Italian heritage and deep love for medieval architecture. Dario is the great grandson of pioneering vintner Vittorio Sattui, an Italian immigrant who founded St. Helena Wine Cellars in 1885. The Sattui family lived at the winery, even after Prohibition closed the business in 1920. Dario was always fascinated by the stories and photos of the old winery. As a child, he would play in the winery’s underground cellars and dream of reviving the family business.
To quote Dario Sattui,
“In my mind, everything had to be authentic, or it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Faking it in any way might be all right for others, but I would know the difference, making it a failed attempt to explore my passion for medieval architecture. You simply can’t build an ‘old structure’ using modern techniques and tools. It would look fake, and everyone would realize it’s an imitation. Rather, we were going to build the structure – within the limits of the current building code – using the same techniques medieval builders had relied on eight hundred years ago.”
The barrel lids on the wall (photo above) show all the names of wine lovers who have purchased a certain amount of wine from the “Castle”. Guess whose names will be up there soon!! The man who gave us our wine tasting was so knowledgeable and passionate about this amazing wine. Such a fun afternoon.