Entrance to Vermeil Tasting Room in downtown Napa

1018 1st St, Napa, CA 94559

Website: http://vermeilwines.com/

Wine pros will often talk about how wine preference is connected to the experience individuals associate with it. I can attest to that. I will always remember Vermeil Tasting Room in downtown Napa and the special experience I shared with my husband, sister, and sister’s friend Jen. We visited on February 1, 2015. The significance of that date is it was Super Bowl Sunday and the New England Patriots were playing the Seattle Seahawks. When I booked our trip I did not realize it was Super Bowl weekend. My husband is a big New England Patriots fan. We made a compromise – he would go along with the trip provided that we could watch the Super Bowl. I searched around online for pubs or other places that would be showing the game and ran across Vermeil Wines. This winery is owned by former NFL football coach Dick Vermeil. Every year they broadcast the game on the screen TVs in their tasting room. This was perfect! My husband could watch the game and I could sample the wine.

Memorabilia inside Vermeil’s tasting room

Dick Vermeil grew up in Calistoga and started making a name for himself as a quarterback in high school. He went on to have a very successful career as a college coach for UCLA and an NFL coach winning a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams. Dick then had a fourteen-year career as a sportscaster for CBS and ABC. Upon retiring from football and sports casting, Dick returned to his roots in Calistoga to start up a winery.

This winery has two tasting rooms, one in Calistoga and the other in downtown Napa. We spent 3 hours sitting in the tasting room in downtown Napa watching Super Bowl 2015. It was an ideal setting for us. The tasting room is decorated with football paraphernalia. There were pictures of Dick Vermeil on the wall in various stages of his career and a replica Vince Lombardi trophy. The tasting room was divided into two areas. The main area has the tasting bar and a small seating area between the tasting bar and front windows with a coffee table and comfy chairs situated in front of a TV. This is the spot we claimed. There was a separate room off of the main area with some couches, a table, and another TV. Our hostess was very accommodating. We did a tasting and pairing with some small bites. The atmosphere was very casual and comfortable. It was the next best thing to being home with some friends enjoying the game. Passersby would stop in occasionally to check the score. The icing on the cake of the whole experience was the Patriot’s pulling off an incredible win in the last seconds of the game.

The tasting bar at Vermail

Although in this particular instance we sought out this place because we wanted to watch the game more so than to try the wines, I did appreciate the tasting room and the wines. We really enjoyed their Zinfandels and Dutton Ranch Chardonnay. The tasting room is a couple of blocks away from the Oxbox Market where you can do some shopping and try lots of different foods. The area is also surrounded by lots pf popular restaurants. This tasting room has a nice, laid back atmosphere and we appreciated the hospitality over the course of a few hours that we were there.