Wednesday was a day to celebrate. Why? Because Wednesday was Wendy's birthday, that's why! Well, actually, I don't know If your house is like our house, but this week is actually Wendy's birthday week, and it kicks off a series of weeks that make up Wendy's grand birthday celebration. I mean, with an event so important, it must be celebrated, right? Like Wimbledon or the Olympics, Wendy's birthday typically lasts a fortnight.

So what did we do for Wendy's birthday? We went to Nap Valley! No, seriously, we did.

Actually, this all started several months ago when I asked Wendy what she wanted for her birthday. Half joking but completely serious, she said "I'd really like to go to Napa Valley." At the time, I had no issues with this and I figured it would make a very cool and very fun trip. Unfortunately, my job had other ideas.

The major project I've been working had finally received an end date. However, this end date set a vacation blackout date that happened to land right smack dab in the middle of the time we were planning to board a plane to the west coast. I had to call Wendy to let her know the sad news. She was rather disappointed but knew there was nothing I could do about it. To make matters worse, due to work commitments in both of our jobs, this past week was the only viable window for the trip, so no trip the first week of May would mean no trip until possibly September or beyond.

But wait, Wendy's frown was about to turn upside down. About two weeks ago there was a last minute change in plans on my project and that opened up the previously blacked out vacation dates. I swung into action and began planning Wendy's last minute Napa Valley adventure, as she requested. By the end of the night we had airline tickets purchased, wonderful sitters for Lulu and Mel, and hotel accommodations at our favorite place, the Silverado Resort, all lined up. With everything in order, last Sunday we boarded a plane for San Francisco and headed west to our ultimate destination, California Wine Country.

If you're a frequent reader of our blog, or a follower on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest, you may already know of our love for wine. (In fact, we've written a three part itinerary if you're interested in planning a trip of your own.) Our true enjoyment actually stems from our love of Napa Valley, and we make every attempt possible to go back for at least a short trip every year. Though we are already very familiar with the area and our favorites, there are dozens of places (both vineyards and restaurants) that we've never had the chance to experience. We decided to commit ourselves to trying out some places we've never visited on this trip, and we're quite glad we did. Today we'll share the vineyards we visited on the trip in hopes that it will either help you on your trip planning, or inspire you to consider a vacation to the Napa Valley.

After a short stop in San Francisco to see some friends who recently moved to the area, we jumped in our rental car and headed out over the Golden Gate bridge to make the short trip to the Napa Valley.

Though we've made the drive fairly regularly over the last six years, we both still fall in love with the area each time we see the first vineyards of the trip at the edge of the Carneros region.

Almost as soon as we arrived and checked into our room we headed out for our first dinner at one of our favorite places, Brix. 

The weather was absolutely perfect so we ended up sitting on their outdoor seating/garden area. The back of the restaurant looks out onto vineyard property and over the mountains. It's one of those places that has such an unbelievably relaxing feeling to it that we started planning out how we could make our own backyard feel like this one. Granted, we don't have the space, mountains, weather, etc, but hey, we can try. We're such home improvement nerds we can't help but to scheme and plan when we see ideas or inspiration, no matter how far fetched the implementation may actually be.

For dinner we enjoyed a perfectly cooked pizza while we planned out the rest of our trip. Traveling somewhere, especially a significant distance over several time zones, tends to leave us completely exhausted (which seems dumb since we're just sitting on a plane). This type of a relaxing dinner in a comfortable and familiar setting goes a long way to making us feel at ease and right at home.

On Monday we woke up bright and early (a three hour time change will do that to you) and headed out to the somewhat touristy but rather famous, Chateau Montelena.

If you're not familiar, Chateau Montelena is the vineyard featured in the movie Bottle Shock. It was one of the vineyards that helped to put the Napa Valley wine industry on the map when they were awarded first place in the 1976 "Judgement of Paris" wine competition. It was a major coup in which several American wines bested their French counterparts in a blind tasting that was judged by several French judges. The 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay is now revered in the lore of California wines, as is the 1973 Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, the winner in the red's category. Here's one of the remaining bottles of the famous 1973 chardonnay on display in the chateau's tasting area and lobby.

Though we arrived too late to get a tour of the vineyard (it's limited to just six people, first come, first served, each Monday), the person who led our tasting give us a behind the scenes tour of the main building's private and entertaining quarters. The building was built in 1882, so this tour was right up our "historic home nerd" alley.

The area is typically only made available to limited corporate events or to friends of the vineyard's owners, so it was cool to get to see the nicely and period decorated spaces. We also got a glimpse at their very nice kitchen area. Again, we try to take inspiration from just about anywhere we can, so a look at this type of a layout may very well end up in our home, even if you can fit three of our kitchens in this one.

One of the things we like to do whenever we are in Napa Valley is to talk with the locals to learn what we should do. It's good to remember that all of the people working at the vineyards are typically well informed and very friendly locals, and they usually all have a passion for wine and food, so it's great to take advantage of their knowledge of the area to further plot your vacation. On this day we struck up a great conversation while tasting the wines at Montelena and learned of several new places that we should try.

From Chateau Montelena we headed over to Schramsberg Vineyards for a sparkling wine tasting. We first learned of Schramsberg from a friend's recommendation, and then were told they have "the best bubbles in the valley," during our conversation at Montelena. 

This is another very historic and well known vineyard in northern part of the Napa Valley towards Calistoga. Founded in 1862, and constructed over several years, the original owner hired the workers who built the transcontinental railroad to dig, with shovel and axes, the extensive network of over two miles of tunnels within the mountain side. The tour covered a large number of the tunnels and was a real treat to see. Though you can't really see it in the photo, the stone walls, candle light, and cobwebs covering the walls felt like you had walked into an Indiana Jones movie. It was really cool.

Yes, those guys are stacking bottles for long term storage and aging.

During the tour we came across Ramon "The Riddler" Vierra. No no, not like in Batman, but this guy is a rock star in the champagne and sparkling wine industry. As part of the traditional methods of champagne production, a person must turn and tilt the bottles in a riddling rack to get the yeast that was added to the bottle to create the bubbles you see in sparkling wine to settle into the neck of the bottle. It's a process that takes time, expertise, and a tremendous amount of organization and patience. 

I say Ramon is a rock star because he's been riddling for 37 years and was responsible for the turning of all bottles of Schramsberg's annual production until he went into partial retirement. He now only works a few days per week, but he's just as fast as ever. Ramon has been officially clocked as the fastest riddler in the world, turing as many as 50,000-60,000 bottles in a single day of work. Here he is in action making precise turns and tilts on each and every bottle in the rack.