Parks and Paths: 🎶Red Red Wine🎶 .... UB40

Woody has a passion for history. It was wonderful hearing about the history of the town, Winter, as well as the history of Berryessa Gap Vineyards. We really enjoyed our tour!

On short notice we could only get 2 nights in Napa. Sunday we moved only 30 minutes away to The Vineyard RV Park in Vacaville. We were a little earlier so unfortunately for me we had to spend some time at the Vacaville Outlet Mall! I swear this was the largest outlet mall I've been too. Any extra time I'm going back.

Berryessa Gap Vineyards

Room where the wine was aged. The white wine is in the metal containers on the left and the reds are in the oak barrels. This room was cool.

These are samples of the rootstocks that are grafted to the grape vines to make them stronger and less susceptible to disease.

They grow these rootstocks and sell them to other Vineyards. This freezer (36° I think) was dedicated to crates with rootstocks packed in a material to preserve them.

Room where the winemaker, Nicole Solengo, does her magic.

We owe a big thanks to Woody for a fabulous tour and for sharing his wealth of knowledge!

This is Berryessa Gap. The pass between the mountains brings in cooler air which is great for growing grapes.

The Berryessa Brewing Company rents space from the Winery. They had the Buckhorn BBQ Truck on the grounds today. Once again, I needed food after our wine tasting.

Music from Jessica Malone.

Saturday morning Pat took me on a drive through Napa Valley. Lots of grapevines and one Winery/Vineyard after another. Too many to count. Most were gated and you could only enter if you had an appointment, but it was a beautiful drive.

In the afternoon we returned to Napa. We engaged our "Let's Roam" app. "Let's Roam" is a fun game that allows you to learn about a town. The theme in Napa was history. In a little over a mile walk we had to find an old theater, bank, the fish statue Pat was standing by, 3 parks, and a few other places and thenanswer questions about those locations for points. It also has challenge questions like "take a picture of a #7" or a video of a friend "acting out their favorite line in a movie." We paid a reasonable amount for an unlimited year and have found many places that have courses. I enjoy it.

The grapevines seem to take to the hills well.

The Culinary Institute of America
What a neat place to go to school. They also had a restaurant.

The Beringer Vineyards had their gates open so we went in. It is the longest continously operating Winery in Napa. We got to see the 1876 home of Frederick Berringer, Rhine House, but without a reservation we got to drive right back out!

Sutter Home Winery looked a little more modest and didn't care if people stopped by. It was founded in 1890, closed during prohibition, and reopened inthe laye 1940's.

The starting point for "Let's Roam" was on 1st Street in Napa. One of the challenge questions included videoing a team-mate telling a famous line from a movie.

The Hatt Building and the Napa Mill building were built between 1884 and 1887. They are supposedly haunted. We had to read the plaque on the building to answer the question.

We had to go to the Riverfront and find the largest fish.

Our task here was to capture a team-mate pretending to fish.

At the Opera House we had to find the street address and then subtract the year the building was built.

Time to chill out after our history hunt. Dick Vermeil turned to wine after a successful football career. Good but by the bottle it was too pricey for us.