Napa Valley

Curt and I met our friends Randee and Stephen along with their friend Yvonne up in Napa Valley today. We met for lunch at Dean & Deluca. It is this great store that has tons of wine, olive oil, a deli, lots of cheese, etc. We got sandwiches, drinks and chips there and headed to a cute little park to eat our lunch. It was sprinkling but eventually stopped and the sun actually came out for a bit. The sandwiches we got were really good.
Afterward we headed to Beringer, where Yvonne works for another few days. We had lots of tastings and then bought some wine at 50% off. Woo-hoo. Stephen had an order from a co-worker to stock up on a bunch of wine. The guy gave him 3K to spend. And that wasn't difficult. Their car was riding low.
Then to the Coppola winery, which is now called Rubicon Estate. We had free tastings there because Stephen is a wine club member. They also had a little gallery that had stuff from Coppola's movies. Pretty cool. They had a bunch of his Oscars on display, too. The gang stocked up on some wine. That one I didn't get any--even with the discount it was a little costly.
Our last stop was Andretti Winery. We had free tastings there because of my wine club membership. Lots of tastings there, too. We did comment to the woman that we liked the music--it was very hip. Not snotty winery music, as Randee put it. They had some yummy mustard to taste with pretzels and salsa and chips. I got a wine diva shirt (pictured on the left), a bottle of wine and some CO2 wine bottle opener (pictured on the right). The others also stocked up on some items. With my wine club membership I get discounts on all items.
We got discounts at all three of the wineries we visited and free tastings.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't too nice. It just sprinkled a bit, but it woulda been perfect if it was sunnier. Oh well. But it was a nice day.