Castello di Amorosa - a Lovely Castle Winery in Napa Valley Region

There are numerous wineries in the Napa Valley region in California.

Today, we visited this famous wine making region. We left San Francisco in the morning and stopped at one of the restaurants in Napa Valley for lunch.

After lunch, we drove to visit another famous winery in the region.




















The winery we were going to visit was located  about 20 minutes away.

We drove by a lovely little hamlet called St. Helena.



















Though a small town, St. Helena was humming with activities and quite a few visitors.

My husband suggested that we went to the Castello di Amorosa winery housed in a medieval castle replica.

So off we went!

Visiting this castle winery was not in our plan and we had to go out of the way a little bit.

However, I really didn't care where I was. As long as I am with my loved ones, anywhere I go and anything I see is beautiful to me!












 I squealed with delight as we were greeted by beautiful tall trees leading us to this castle winery.

These majestic trees reminded me so much of our pleasant visit to the Tuscany region in Italy a few years ago.

We arrived at the Castello di Amorosa winery in the late afternoon. The winery celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

This medieval castle replica was funded and built privately by one of the local wine makers.



Evidently, much research and careful design went into the designing and building of this castle winery.








 The castle is surrounded by a moat.

Castello di Amorosa - a Lovely Castle Winery, comes with a moat, in Napa Valley

It even has a drawbridge leading into the castle building!

How I wished we were here years ago.

Our children would have been thrilled to see this castle as they were fascinated by knights and castles during their elementary school years.

There was a guided tour as well as wine tasting offered by the castle management for a fee of  US$40.00 per head.

But if you missed the guided tour, you could still go for the wine tasting at a lesser charge.

We missed the formal guided tour but took a self guided tour of the castle and the property around it.






















This castle winery has been designed to imitate the Medieval life as much as possible.

 It has a farm with a few goats kept behind a small barn and with some chickens
roaming freely nearby.

Strolling around in these lovely castle buildings, I found it hard to believe that these buildings were rebuilt as replicas since everything looked so authentic.

These buildings and courtyard looked every bit like the ones we saw in Italy where we visited a few years ago.

I distinctly remember visiting a church in Assisi with very similar
architectural design such as these arches with flower containers placed underneath them.











What impressed us a lot was the details in many of these buildings. One particular room which wowed us was the Great Hall which was the centre of life during the Medieval period.

 Great Hall of the Castello di Amnorosa Winery, Napa Valley

Apparently, people in the area can rent this room and host their special events in the Great Hall of the Castello di Amnorosa.




We ventured down to the cellar for  some wine tasting.




















We passed by the gift shop selling various wines and other souvenir items.

Our friendly hostess at the wine tasting session

There were quite a few people enjoying the wines produced at this particular winery.

Out host was very helpful and friendly.

Cheers! Wine tasting at the  Castello di Amorosa winery in Napa Valley

For each person who signed up for the wine tasting session, he/ she was given five different drinks of their choices.





















We met a lovely couple from another part of the U.S. at the tasting session and enjoyed a great conversation with them.


Some of the locally produced wines have garnered awards.

 We learned that these wines are only sold at this winery without being sold elsewhere. The winemakers of  Castello di Amorosa have established a thriving business making and selling their own wines directly to the public from their gift shop.

After the wine tasting session, we still had some time before it closed.




















We toured the castle property a little bit more and climbed the stairs to the top of the castle to have a better view of the surrounding area below.

View from the top of Castello di Amorosa, Napa Valley, USA

We had a really good view of the courtyard and vineyard below us.





















We knew that we wanted to visit a vineyard in Napa Valley.

But Castello di Amorosa was not on our itinerary. My husband discovered it by chance after we picked up some brochure in the region.

Sometimes, in life, we cannot plan everything.
Once in a while and by chance, we will come across some amazing thing that would wow us.

Castello di Amorosa was such an awesome experience for us.

We enjoyed the visit tremendously and glad that we spent some time there with our loved ones and share some precious moments with them.














We drove back to SF at around 9pm; we were tired but had an absolutely enjoyable day!

R.T.
Castello di Amorosa
Napa Valley, California
USA