<a href='http://bachtobacchus.blogspot.com/'>Bach to Bacchus: V. Sattui Winery</a>

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

V. Sattui Winery

V. Sattui Winery is a large winery that has an expansive picnic area, a deli and cheese shop, picturesque buildings reminiscent of Europe in the 1800s (built in 1985), a wine cellar and cave and a large tasting room with gift shop. It is a great place to walk around, with many photo opportunities and a great place for a picnic. We have often driven by there and seen many people at their picnic grounds having lunch or snacks. During the summer or on weekends it often looks especially busy. We visited them on a rainy Wednesday morning in February, about as off-season as it gets. There were still quite a few people there but no lines.

Barrel building

We walked around taking photos of the buildings and scenes and then went down to their cellar area where they had a small museum, large wine barrels and people who were at tables eating lunch. (It had been raining intermittently.) The tasting room is in a different one-story building where there is a gift shop and a deli where you can order sandwiches or purchase one of the many gourmet cheeses they have. The tasting room itself is the largest we have seen in Napa Valley.

Old wine press

There were fifty wines available for tasting on the list and we only tasted six of them, so it is difficult to generalize about the wines. The ones we tried included the Sattui 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, the Sattui 2010 Pinot Noir , the Sattui 2008 Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon, the Sattui 2007 Morisoll Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, the Sattui 2009 Syrah and the Sattui 2008 Gilsson Russian River Zinfandel at $37. Our favorite was a very nice Zinfandel, the Sattui 2008 Gilsson Zinfandel. If you very good Zins, you should try this one. It is a fruit forward, jammy zin that is well balanced.

Barrel room

If you are looking for a winery with a deli, picnic area, cellar and museum, that offers some great photo opportunities, then you will want to visit V. Sattui, especially if it is off-season or during a time when it is not crowded. Something visitors will certainly appreciate is that most of their wines are less expensive than at many other Napa Valley wineries. We did not try any deli items but they looked tasty.