A few million years ago (3.4 to be exact) Mt. St. Helena (not to be confused with Mt. St. Helens) blew up. Volcanic ash made the fertile Napa Valley wine growing region of California.
It also blew an ancient redwood forest to smithereens, and created the Petrified Forest a few miles outside Calistoga.
Say what you want about tourist traps, but this one is pretty neat.
On a beautiful California morning...
What could be better?
In the afternoon we took a tour of a wine "castle" called Castello Di Amroso. A Disneyland of wine country affluence.
If you came to the Napa Valley in the early 1970's, a young guy named Darrel Satttui was peddling wine from a VW bus along the highway. He had an MBA in business marketing from Berkeley (uncool at the time) and borrowed a few thousand dollars from his grandma to open the V. Sattui winery and picnic deli, the first of its kind in the Napa Valley. And now, he is a multi millionaire and we are visiting his castle.
In the early nineties, be decided to build an authentic Italian medieval castle with tons of art and materials brought over from Europe.
The Great Hall.
The Wine storage.
Antiques galore.
Fake scary dungeon.
Hideous torture chamber with a few real relics.
More nice wine.
And more wine.
And so on...another vacation day comes to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment