V. Sattui Winery: A Wonderful St. Helena, California, Destination

V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena, California, is a wonderful place to stop in Napa Valley for scenery, gourmet lunches and a great tasting experience. If you are touring Napa Valley, I highly recommend that you make V. Sattui a stop on your list. V. Sattui has some of the best scenery in the area and is a wonderful place to grab a bite during the lunchtime hour. Below, I will tell you some of the highlights of V. Sattui.

V. Sattui is a family owned and operated winery located in St. Helena, about a 30-minute drive from Napa. V. Sattui offers excellent wine, and also has a large gourmet deli. The deli has a plethora of cheeses, as well as other gourmet deli items available for purchase. V. Sattui lends a romantic setting to couples - right outside the winery is a large shaded picnic area where lunch is enjoyed. Be careful, the picnic area is only for customers of V. Sattui purchasing lunches and/or wine.The winery sits on 2.5 acres of beautiful landscape - something definitely worth seeing on your trip to the area.

V. Sattui offers many different kinds of wines. The different kinds of wines that are offered include red wine, white wine, sparkling wine, roses, italian wine, dessert wine, and vintage wine. I personally visited V. Sattui last February, and there are a few wines that I found to be beyond wonderful. The 2005 Muscat (a dessert wine) was perhaps the best Muscat that I have ever tasted. It was very sweet, and I ended up taking a couple of bottles home with me. A second dessert wine that I found to be most excellent was the Port wine. It too was extremely sweet, and I purchased a few bottles of that as well. A rose wine that was superb was the Gamay Rouge. It had a great taste as well. I debated between that one and the Muscat when deciding which one I liked best (I went with the muscat).
V. Sattui had two different Rieslings - the dry Riesling and the off-dry Riesling. I found both of them to be exhuberating, and I could not decide which I liked better (and trust me, I sampled several times in trying to decide!). I am not much of a red wine lover, but I did find the Syrah to be very flavorful. It was robust, yet not overly robust. The Cabernet Sauvignon also had excellent flavor - my husbnad, a man who loves red wine, found this to be his favorite.

For more information on the selection of wines, please visit http://www.vsattui.com/wines/.

V. Sattui winery is open year round, except for Christmas day. Their summer hours are 9 AM - 6 PM, and their winter hours are 9 AM - 5 PM. Sampling is available for free in their samples room for the standard wines. The "top shelf" wines can be purchased as a sampler if one would like to do so. I would strongly recommend spending a few dollars and trying all of the wines (standard and special).

V. Sattui is definitely worth the drive if you are staying in Napa. It is a wonderful environment with excellent wines and lunch. No trip to the wine country would be complete without a stop.