Building an itinerary for Aug. Sonoma/Napa trip -- looking for help

[TheEngineer]

Ahh...yup sorry but your answer is what I had anticipated (especially after seeing zd on the PN front). sorry ta make you explain. Regardless I think you will have a BLAST!!!!

I'll dig through some notes tonight to see what I'd suggest but here are a few that may do the trick

(1) I love terra valentine for the visit. It is out of the way up in spring mountain and they have a fantastic little hand built castle that the original owner (a bit of a recluse) built. They use to make a PN but not sure anymore. A call would clear that up.

(2) Milat is a small family winery on I-29 (can you believe that!!)

(3) Joseph Phelps (which also owns Fogdog which does the Pinot) had a great site but it is a bit large scale....maybe not...

(4) What about the Carneros for PN trekking? Acacia is there and I enjoyed a visit to Ceja which is a fully Mexican-American family owned vineyard. I like their PN too which was on the lighter fresher food friendly kind...They are also great cooks and often have tapas to go with the wines.

(5)If you are going to Swan, Inman family is right around the corner as is Walter Hansel and Lynmar.

(6) For variety of varietals...nothing probably beats V. Sattui. Their wines are also not distributed outside of the winery (they sell everything on site only) and have a nice little area for a picnick. Viader (tempranillo, etc) and heitz also have a number of different varietals and I like their tasting rooms (Viader is at the top of their VERY steep slope that would be double black diamond if you were to skii on it...

BTW, I have this great map that I use all the time (in fact it is in my daily laptop bag permanently). It is from Quick Access, Napa-Sonoma wine Country (Map and Guide). Sells form about $7 in Borders and amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Access-Napa-Sonoma-Country-California-Region/dp/1891267574

I find this invaluable to just get oriented.

[This message has been edited by TheEngineer (edited 06-27-2007).]