In Planning a Wine Tour: Give yourself more than One day to plan

Plan ahead you say? Why not just head up to Napa and "taste around?" This is in fact what most people do, or rather what everyone I've ever talked to does. Its all sexy, spontaneous and inspiring to fly by the seat of your pants and jump into the car and go taste wine, I know, I've done it myself a bunch a times.

But here's the drawback to not planning ahead, you don't know where your going, you don't know how to get where you think you might want to go, and consequently everyone of these select individuals end up at places like Buena Vista Vineyards (B.V), Mumm Napa, Clos du Bois, V. Sattui and Dean & Deluca - now don't get me wrong, these are all great places the first time. But with a couple of days of forethought, calling ahead to the vineyard, restaurants, and hotels to make reservations will make reaching for that glass more of a pleasure and less of a necessity.

In pursuing a wine tour this weekend myself I have picked the height of the season for busy wine tasting (slight sarcasm) to go (actually it just turned out this way) - I always prefer the slow season, it feels like you have the Estates and Napa all to yourself - but there's a first time for everything and this busy Napa trip is mine. With the wonderful efforts of some people in the wine houses I'm visiting it should be quite an adventure! So sit back and vicariously live my Napa adventure with me, here's the list of what I'm hoping to accomplish, in just the first day:

	9:30am – 10:20am	Tour the Grounds of Chateau Montelena/ or Grigich Hills Wine Tasting - 1429 Tubbs Lane Calistoga, CA 94515 or 1829 St. Helena Hwy, St. Helena, CA
	10:25am – 11:25am	Estate Tour / Tasting - Stags Leap Wine Cellars - 5766 Silverado Trail, Napa CA 94558
	11:30am – 1:00pm	Self-guided tour/ Seated Tasting/ Talking with Wine Educator - Frogs Leap - 8815 Conn Creek Rd Rutherford California 94573
	1:00pm – 2:00pm	Lunch - Dean & Deluca
	2:00pm – 3:30pm	Vineyard Tour / Tasting - Quixote - Quixote Winery, 6126 Silverado Trail Napa, CA 94558
	3:30pm – 4:30pm	Tasting/ Self-Guided Tour - Opus One - 7900 St. Helena Highway Oakville, CA 94562
	4:30pm – 5:30pm	Trade Tasting/ Tasting - Elizabeth Spencer - 1165 Rutherford Road Rutherford, California 94573
	5:30pm – 6:30pm	Tasting - Jessup Cellars
	7:00pm – 8:00pm	Drinks/ Appetizer - Bouchon
	9:00pm – 10:30pm	Dinner - Bistro Jeanty