Stomping Grapes in Wine Country

dress | over the knee boots | hat | earrings

Wine Country is a place that’s very near and dear to our hearts. Living in San Francisco for almost three years, we spent quite a bit of time in Napa, Sonoma, and the surrounding areas. It was a place where we would bring visitors, celebrate special occasions, and spend all day soaking up the California sun. So naturally, when we went back to San Francisco for our first post-move visit, we took a trip up to wine country. A short week after we were there, wildfires broke out in the area. Our hearts go out to all of those affected by the wildfires that are currently moving through California. Wine country is a beautiful place, and more importantly, full of wonderful people. Below are some ways you can help those affected:

Donate to the Red Cross

Donate to the California Fire Relief pages on GoFundMe

If you live in the Bay Area, here and here are some additional ways you can help.

As we keep wine country in our thoughts and prayers, we remember all the beautiful times we’ve had there including our most recent visit.

The late summer and early fall is when harvest is, and grape stomping has been on my bucket list for years, so an early October visit was the perfect opportunity. My sister and her fiance, who live in SF, and my mom, who was in for the weekend, offered to watch Wyatt so Tim and I could have a solo day-date. We sipped wine while we stomped grapes at Grigch Hill Estates…in a big barrel, our feet juice stained, just like you would imagine. Afterwards, we got to watch how they really crush grapes nowadays, and walked around the beautiful estate. After making Tim take too many pics, we headed over to V. Sattui for our second stop.

V. Sattui was always a winery that we wanted to visit because when we moved to SF, the tenants before us in our very first apartment had been wine club members there. The first month we lived there we got a surprise package with two bottles of wine from V. Sattui, we texted the couple that they rightfully belonged to and let them know they could come over whenever to pick up their wine…they never came. Month after month for the next six months we got two new bottles in the mail. Every month we let them know more wine was delivered in the hopes (not really) that they would cancel their membership or at least transfer the address to their new one, but the bottles just kept coming. They finally stopped, but it always left us wondering about V. Sattui, and we felt like we should go there since we were now very familiar with their wine. Three years later we finally made it there and it did not disappoint.

V. Sattui a huge place, and they have great picnicking options. The grounds are beautiful and there are lots of areas to do tastings. We headed over to the lawn and grabbed some BBQ (a seasonal weekend event), and then into the tasting room to grab a bottle of wine (they also have an amazing cheese selection and tons of other picnic food in their deli). We enjoyed the California sun and vineyard scenery with a crisp bottle of sauv blanc, some tasty food, and some much-needed alone time. It was the perfect Saturday.

Grigch Hills is currently closed to visitors, while V. Sattui remains open. As we remember happier times like this in wine country, we are keeping the area in our thoughts and prayers during this tragedy. Donate to help those affected.