Day 7 - Ahh the smell of toasted wood in the morning!

We started our morning with a very fun and fascinating adventure. We had arranged a tour of Seguin Moreau the French, based cooperage, located in Napa. To begin the tour you watch a short video about the history of Seguin Moreau and background facts on wine barrel making and uses. From the video you are sent into the production facility for a self guided tour. When you enter the production facility there is a little walk that allows you to view the entire process of barrel making. We were all totally spellbound and captivated for 2 hours watching this process. Wow! I highly recommend taking this tour the sights, sounds and aromas of this process will captivate you!

From Seguin we headed back to Cuvaison to take a tour, that we had been able to do the previous night, and to give Lisa and John the opportunity to sample their wines. We went on our tour and headed back to the tasting room were they had a new wine, Archilla, available to sample which we all loved and purchased.

From Cuvaison we headed up to Calistoga for our appointment with Chris Madrigal at Madrigal Vineyards. We took a tour of Madrigal's new winery (not totally completed, yet and when it is it will be beautiful) and then headed inside to taste wines. Chris as usual was extremely friendly and hospitable, despite being very ill, and poured us some fantastic wines. While we greatly enjoyed all of the wines that Chris poured for us, the universal winner was Las Viñas del Señor Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Tony and I were also enamored with the Petite Sirah Port.

While at Madrigal I received a phone call from Mr Sawyer inviting the group to Sawyer Cellars for their wine club party the next morning, which we promptly and graciously accepted. So we will have a full day tomorrow.

After Madrigal we headed for "snacks" at Oakville Grocery after a short detour to Milat Winery for a quick tasting. Once at Oakville Grocery we sat out back, snacked and maybe drank a few more bottles. After our Oakville snack we headed out for our real dinner at Mustard's.