As part of our reviewing family-friendly wineries project, we’ve often looked to the Napa Vintners Association website for guidance. They have a Winery Finder tool on there and, behold, one of the search options is family-friendly (others are dog-friendly, wine caves, picnic areas, unique architecture, et cetera).
Today, due to their family-friendly listing on the Vintners’ site we visited Schweiger Vineyards. Located just 15 or so minutes up Spring Mountain Road west of downtown Saint Helena, this winery certainly lives up to the classification.
After a lovely, twistyturny drive into the mountains, we pulled up to their gate and this view of their terraced vineyards and Mount Saint Helena:
We continued up the long gravel driveway until we came upon the winery buildings and a blonde woman, a blonde little girl and two dogs–one, yes, blonde; the other black–came out to greet us.
After kindly introductions to Diana Schweiger and her daughter Christina–and Blitzen and Sid–we tasted their Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay–both excellent, and we even generally aren’t Chard fans–right there at a nice, small wood bar in the production area (that’s wineryspeak for the gorgeously utilitarian area where all the big stainless steel fermentation tanks are).
From there we all headed down into the barrel room and to a second casual, intimate tasting bar. As Samantha enjoyed a Capri Sun (you know a winery is truly family-friendly when they have juice on hand for the kiddos) we tasted through the reds–a Merlot, a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Bordeaux-style blend named Dedication and a Port, each fantastic with classic, big mountain fruit.
Then, Christina came through with Nutmeg–their astonishingly calm calico winery kitty. When Christina and Nutmeg climbed the stacks of case boxes (what a cool place to play!), we knew right away where Samantha was headed:
Since the Sauvignon Blanc was perfect for us with our picnic fare, we grabbed a bottle and headed up and out to the lawn. Diana and Christina set us up with a great picnic table overlooking the valley:
A beautiful sense of calm prevailed as we enjoyed our cheese, charcuterie, and baguette with the SB.
We felt like we were at someone’s home. Which, well, we were. We felt so comfortable. It was lovely.
Samantha played:
We were the only ones there, except of course, Sid:
And I finally got the shot I’ve been wanting (usually one of us has a funny look or something):
We finished up our picnic; another small group of visitors arrived. As we said goodbye to Diana, Christina, Sid and Blitzen, we stopped to take a few more photos:
