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Yountville is a little town just up the valley from Napa.  My girlfriend, Denise and her husband Lee live there and I spent a couple days with them while I was in California. Ahhhhh what a peaceful little place.  Denise & I went on a bike ride and just up the street from their house are vineyards and around the corner from the vineyards is this great old wooden barn.  If you look real close in the picture with the cattle . . . in the shadows on the right side there is a brand new baby calf . . . can you see it??? with the little white face . . . so cute!  We went on walks and went acorn hunting (I just had to have some).  Brought back a bunch of acorns, surely I will think of something to do with them. My most favorite thing to do at Denise’s is hanging out by the fire pit.  Lee is the master fire pitter!!  Denise’s sister & my brother came up to visit & we just sat around the fire, listening to country music and sharing some laughs. Great time at the Fonville 5 Star KOA – LOL!!!!! Thanks everyone for sharing your time with me!!! Love you all!!

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My brother works for Sterling Vineyards in the Napa Valley.  It’s actually up on a mountainside in Calistoga and overlooks the valley.  So gorgeous!  Of all the years I lived in Napa I had never visited Sterling before.  Randy (my brother) set us up with “special” lanyards that got us on the tram (the only way up to the winery), the wine tasting and THEN the “special” wine tasting reserved for “club” members only.  So much F.U.N.!  The weather was perfect.  It had been raining all morning but broke as soon as we reached Calistoga.  It’s “crush” (harvest time) right now in the valley so we got to watch some of the grapes going through the process of being separated from the stems, very cool.  In the picture with the red grapes you can see a guy pouring a bucket of oak chips into the grapes.  Some of the wine is stored in oak barrels (or stainless steel).  Sterling started added oak chips in the beginning of the process to enhance the flavor of some of the red wines.  One of the white wines we tried (and I bought) is called “Malvasia Bianca”.  Oh my word it was so good!  A little sweet and so crisp! Randy said it’s their best seller and they sometimes run out of it!  You can only buy it at the winery.  We all had such a good time.  Nothing like some wine and good friends . . . the only thing we were missing was some “hot chocolate” (inside joke)!!! Thanks Randy!!!! xoxo

http://sterlingvineyards.com/