Wine-ing for Another Vacation

I just got home from a great trip to San Diego barely a week ago, and I'm already dreaming of where I want to spend part of my vacation next year.

My wife and I drink red wine on a regular basis and have talked about visiting the Napa Valley of California before, but watching the movie Sideways yesterday re-kindled the idea for us. If you haven't seen it, the movie is built around the story of a visit to the Santa Barbara wine country that a couple of guys go on just prior to one of the guy's wedding. Throughout the movie, there is a lot of talk about wine and a lot of local scenery is shown, including actual wineries and restaurants in the area.

We're not true vinophiles who drink all the different types of wine and can rattle off a dozen descriptive terms when we taste a new wine. We like reds, particularly cabernet sauvignon, especially from the Napa Valley. We haven't ventured very far out of this comfort zone, although we've tasted whites and blushes enough to know they're not for us.

The Napa trip will give us a chance to visit some wineries and taste some wines that we haven't before. Our dining choices locally are very limited, which means the wines we can order by the glass are also few. The tasting rooms at the wineries we plan on visiting will allow us to taste some wines that we wouldn't ordinarily invest the price of an entire bottle on. And, along the way we'll get to learn a little more about wine, how it's made and what makes a good wine. Maybe we'll even taste some whites and blushes too.

Who knows, maybe we'll even learn how to describe what we're tasting?