Any recommendations for New Years Eve in Napa and things to do during the days?

Question

looking for cooking classes, wine tasting, spa recommendation, restaurants (on NYE night or other evenings).
Thanks!

Answer 1

For cooking classes, look into the Culinary Institute in St. Helena. I doubt the college will be having their classes over New Year's, plus those generally run 4 weeks anyway.

Wine tasting. Go to the downtown visitor's association. You can get a tasting card there for $20. It lets you have tastes at any of 7+ wine tasting rooms downtown. Supposedly then a taste costs ten cents, but they usually waive that. The best part is you get to sample a variety of wineries' wines, not just one name. If you do want to actually go to a winery, I suggest Mondavi (the sculptures are neat), Sterling (a tram takes you to the top of the hill to the tasting room and they have a self-guided tour of Japanese gardens), and definitely Mumms. Mumms has an awesome Ansel Adams collection.

Spas are everywhere here. It depends on your budget. High end could be Auberge, Silverado Country Club, Meritage, Villagio. Calistoga has the spas with the most mud baths and mineral treatments. But in Napa I recommend The Relaxation Company. I was on cloud nine after an hour massage with paraffin treatments and the foot treatment.

Restaurants: Anywhere. Etoile, Bistro Don Giovanni, Piccolinos, Don Pericos, Cole's Chop House, Celadon, Bleaux Magnolia, you can't go wrong anywhere. EXCEPT Uva Trattoria and Sushi Mambo. Both have lackluster food and service. And whatever you do, don't go to any of Thomas Keller's restaurants like The French Laundry or Ad Hoc. I happen to know how he treats his employees, and friends have said his prix fixe meals don't live up to the hype. Also, not Bayleaf. I know the owner, he's a pervert. And not the Wine Train. Unless you want to see the backs of buildings and litter. The food's OK though.

If this is helpful, email me. The newspaper gets here this afternoon and they've been advertising NYE bashes constantly. Oh, and I'm sure Downtown Joe's will be having a bash too. I can look up more stuff for you.

Answer 2

it is been 108 for the final couple of days with the warmth index. We somewhat plan what we cook dinner around how warm that's. If I make biscuits and gravy for breakfast, i'm going to pop in a pie whilst the biscuits are carried out so i do no longer would desire to warmth up the oven two times. We bbq some, yet additionally consume numerous salads considering we are working exterior too. We took some injury to our privateness fence in a bad hurricane, so on days as quickly as we are working exterior, it is only salads, no longer something heavy. that's a confusing determination to make pizza. We additionally would desire to pay interest to as quickly as we run home equipment because of the fact the electrical powered company has asked human beings to objective to no longer run issues for the duration of height hours. I in many circumstances run my dish washer as quickly as an afternoon, yet now do it in the previous, and that i attempt to no longer run the dryer after 300pm that's whilst height time starts. We additionally would desire to think of of how we cook dinner because of the fact we gained't drink the water right here, so we cook dinner with bottled water. That has replaced how I cook dinner plenty because of the fact I would desire to think of of the value of water. I made spaghetti as we communicate, and it replaced right into a huge determination to apply 2 gallons of water, one to cook dinner the noodles, and one to rinse them. i do no longer use my crock pot as much as I used to. i could no longer stay without my microwave although. we've been ingesting numerous cereal for breakfast so i do no longer warmth up the kitchen interior the morning. I hate cereal, I wasn't raised ingesting it, so I only hate it. i desire you get some rain and relief from the warmth the place you reside.