Our trip to the Napa Valley on Wednesday unfortunately did not meet our expectations. To begin with, our driver talked at length about all the suicides that occur off the Golden Gate Bridge and how many celebrities had died from the area.
He then proceeded to stress us out by commenting on the high winds and enormous amount of traffic going in the opposite direction from us (away from the Napa Valley) and told us this could be due to the very high fire risk that had been announced for the day. He then continued to tell us about all the recent fires and how many people had died in them, following it up with āthese winds are terrible, easily the worst Iāve seen, we better hope there are no fires today!ā Continuing on the theme, he then let us know that the power company had shut off power to the Valley due to fire risk, so some of the wineries we were going to would likely be affected, unless they had a generator. He also let us know that they had canceled all trips for the following day due to the high fire risk, but didnāt want to cancel two days in a row so had decided to let ours go.
All in all, this created a really tense, uncertain atmosphere on our bus, and one which made us really unsure if we should have been there or were driving into a dangerous situation. He did absolutely nothing to make us feel at ease.
When we got to our first winery (the castle), he pointed out the area that the last fires had ravaged and said āhopefully we donāt see any smoke today, letās just hope for no fires because a lot of people died last time!ā
It wasnāt until we got inside the castle to our first tasting that the lovely guy who was taking us for the tasting (Michael) let us know that our driver was overreacting and that as a resident of Napa Valley, he wasnāt at all worried about the risk of fires today.
The wineries themselves were fantastic and amid beautiful scenery but the tour was not one that I would recommend. Itās also quite expensive for no tastings or tours. The ālunchā provided is simply a $15 voucher to spend at the shop at the second winery. All in all quite disappointing.