Always wanted to see a medieval castles but you live in sunny California instead? Well you’re in luck because tucked in Calistoga, California is a sweet and charming castle called Castello di Amorosa that not only you can do wine tasting but also tour the quaint castle.

I can tell you that I’m not a wine person nor do I drink (occasional beer drinker here). However, my friends and I were looking for a place to experience our first wine-tasting together. We wanted a place that was cute but also worth the drive to see since myself and a friend were from the central valley and another friend up north in Sacramento.

Castello di Amorosa gave us Tuscany, Italy feels because when you make the drive up to the castle, you have to first drive through a pavement that had Taylor juniper trees on either side of the drive. The drive up the castle was about a minute where you can admire the field of grapes on both sides. When driving through this, I recommend putting on a good song to make the experience come alive and hype you up for the tour.

We booked our wine tasting experience for 12 o’clock in the afternoon in July. We also booked for a “standing wine tasting” option. This meant that instead of sitting down to enjoy the wine, we just stood. If you get tire of standing easily, I would recommend that you book the sitting option. It’s also important to note that sitting and standing are put into different rooms. I would also recommend that you book earlier before 12 or later time if it’s in the summer so please don’t make the same mistake we did. It was definitely hot. However, if you are not going to heed my words, then bring a cute straw hat to wear when you are outside. In addition to that, it got pretty busy so definitely plan around that.

The Wine Experience

When you go in for the wine tasting experience, you get to choose 3 wine that you would like to try from a variety of wines that they make. Since I have no idea what I was getting myself into, I let the wine connoisseur gave a brief background in wine. I really enjoyed this and it’s unfortunate that I forgot his name but he was a professor too. According to him, when wine tasting, you want to start off with white wine before reds. In my case, we started off with a white dry wine. As a first impression, the wine was tasteful. I wanted to note how much of a noob I was at wine tasting that I gulped this down in one-shot. Back in my college days, that was how I drink liquor, in one-shot. So can you imagine the horror when I gulped down the white wine in one gulp? Don’t make my mistake folks.

Wine, is so different from liquors and beers, and for very obvious reasons. In wine tasting, you have to swirl the cup so that it’ll stir up the taste and aroma and then you smell it. After doing so, you sip the wine in increments and enjoy it. Following that, we chose a pink rosé wine. The rosé wine was a little sweeter and different from the white dry wine. Rosé wine always sounded so fancy in movies, magazines and everything but after trying rose, I can say I prefer the latter. After this, we chose a red wine. According to the wine connoisseur, the red wine is to sit in your mouth while you slowly, in increments, let a little bit down your throat so you can taste the wine to its fullest potential. He also noted that the point in holding it in your mouth so that the bacteria in your mouth can activate a certain substance in the wine so it adds an extra taste to the wine. How true is this? I’m not too sure. To end the wine tasting, the wine connoisseur offered us a complimentary Moscato. In his words, when wine-tasting, it’s good to end your wine tasting experience with a sweet wine so that it kills off any bitter or dry taste from the previous wines. The Moscato did not disappoint. I’m not a wine connoisseur, but that Moscato was probably the best dang Moscato I have ever tried. I didn’t note down the various wines we tried but they were all delicious in their own ways. You can buy them right after this or save it for after you tour the castle. I would recommend the latter so you don’t have to carry it around while touring.

Touring the Castle

Touring the castle was the second best part about the wine tasting experience at Castello di Amorosa. The castle was big and free to be explored at your own pace. This means that you can take all the selfies you wanted without waiting on anyone or anything. I do want to note that before the wine tasting, you get small tour of the castle before your arrival to the wine tasting area. It’s about 5-8 minutes where a tour guide tells you a brief history of the castle and how it came to be. Other than that, the castle is free for you to explore unless posted signs are up. For example, the basement was off-limits with a sign explicitly stating so. Just move on to the next place because this medieval castle has much more scenes to offer.

My overall first experience of wine tasting was well spent in this beautiful medieval castle in Calistoga, California. The drive leading up to Castello di Amorosa was enjoyable and was shy of a two hour drive from downtown Sacramento. It was well worth the trip. We spent roughly 3 hours here, the wine experience plus touring the castle. It definitely gave me Italy feels.

What To Do Next?

Surrounding this area are other wineries that you can definitely stop by to enjoy if you want to experience other more. Calistoga is near Napa and Sonoma and these two areas are widely known as the places to go to for wine tours. Don’t be shy to stop at other locations as my friends and I did this as well while driving to our hotel in Fairfield.

I hope that this article was helpful to you in determining if you would like to take a wine tour experience at Castello di Amorosa.

Be safe and drink responsibly,

Mai