Drink the Bottles

  In the heart of the Oak Knoll District in Napa Valley, California, sits a winery that is beautiful, welcoming and is also the home of incredible wines.  Trefethen Family Vineyards is a third generation, family owned and sustainably farmed winery that has deep roots in Napa Valley.  The best way to describe the founders, Katie and Gene Trefethen, would be as true pioneers of the area.  Their touches are still evident daily at the winery by the Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve and the amazing gardens that are intertwined throughout the grounds of the estate. Second generation family members and co-founders Janet and John Trefethen created their own footprints in the wine world.  John was the founding president of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and later led the charge for the Napa Valley Vintners during the early critical years.  For 25 years, Janet hosted the Napa Valley Cooking Class and became an ambassador not only for the winery, but also Napa Valley as she became a leader in esta

  Nestled 600 feet about the valley floor in the Coombsville Region of Napa Valley, you will find a winery that is off the beaten path.  This isn't just any winery.  It is a very special place with incredibly friendly people and delicious wines.  Porter Family Vineyards farms 14 acres of vineyards, concentrating primarily on Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  Here are some of the highlights of our recent visit to this magical place. Our visit started with a semi-sweet and refreshing cool glass of 2020 Sandpiper Rosé.  We arrived at Porter Family Vineyards just before 1:30pm and the sun was in full force with a temperature reaching 90 degrees.  This wine was a welcome sight and very  tasty! Our host for the tour and tasting was Luis.  He was super friendly, knowledgeable and has a true passion for the wines and the property.  A good winery host can make or break a tasting experience and we felt very lucky to have Luis show us around.  He told us that he is getting married later this yea

We were very blessed to be able to travel to California recently for a wine trip with great friends.  We had planned the trip in 2020, but we had to postpone for a year due to most of the world shutting down from the Covid pandemic.  We decided that we would take this trip in 2021, come hell or high water. Our "Winos" group as we jokingly and affectionately call ourselves, spent a few evenings and many text messages back and forth to discuss the "must visit" wineries as well as those that had been on various wish lists throughout the years.  After much discussion and many emails back and forth to the wineries on our radar, we finally decided on nine wineries that would complete our adventure.  And, so we begun with Day #1...... Repris Wines. We love Southwest Airlines!  However, a non-stop flight from IND to OAK would be ideal. There were three couples who took part in our journey and each one flew into a different airport.  Kris & Scott flew into Sacramento.  R

  Wine tasting fees.  How much are they and why do I pay them? We recently returned from an incredible wine country adventure that took place in Sonoma and Napa, California over three full days.  While we were there, our wine-loving group of six had the opportunity to visit nine wineries.  Wait, that's not right.  We added a tenth winery, but it was literally for just a glass of wine as they couldn't squeeze us in for a tasting. Prior to the trip, we had combed over our options, created a whiteboard and mapped out best practices based on location, time of day and whether or not we had any "must see" properties.  It turns out that we did.  So much has changed since the last time we were in Napa ... including the wine tasting fees!  Don't get me wrong.  We weren't blindsided and we had our eyes wide open when creating our plans.  Most of the wineries we were visiting were what we would classify as very special places.  These weren't the 5,000,000 cases of bo