Napa Sonoma Recommendations

Hi SD I'm an Aussie wine geek but I think I can help a little. I took my kids (12 & 13) to Disneyland last September and I planned my "Disneyland" trip as part of it, I spent the weekend of 25, 26 September 2004 in the Napa Valley with dinner at the French Laundry in Yountville on Saturday 25 September as the highlight. I worked 16 winerys in 2 days, 4 before lunch & 4 after each day and there are many highlights for me. The bubbles at Schramsberg were equisite and Vincent Arroyo was spectacular (a Pebreast Verdot & a Cab Sav that were absolute persons) I had a pinotage at Stelzner that made me re think an entire variety. I also loved the Franciscan Oakville Estate. 16 Napa winerys from halfway around the world and I remember these 4 as outstanding for their wine. If you are just tourists (and not wine geeks) there are plenty of wine tourism places to go. Domaine Chandon, Neibaum Coppola, Robert Mondavi were those kind of places (ordinary wine though). Another highlight of our trip, I have to say, is when I told the waitress at the French Laundry that I would only drink Napa wines, I mean I'd spent 14 and a 1-2 hours on a plane from Melbourne to LA (then to Vegas then to SF, then I had to drive a car on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD over 100 miles) why would I drink French wines? I'll drink them when I'm in France. As for accomodation we stayed the night at the Marriot in Napa and it was OK. For lunch we picked up bread at the Bouchon Bakery in Yountville and got provisions from the Oakville Grocery and had a picnic each day. We also got some cool things for the picnics at the St Helena Olive Company. Enjoy your trip. Cheers Andrew