Located in the historic Hedgeside Distillery Building just outside the town of Napa, Del Dotto Vineyards offers one of wine country's most unique tasting tours. After sampling a bit of wine in their tasting room and stopping to inhale the unexpected aroma of an empty barrel, you'll take your wine glass along as the tour guide grabs a wine "thief" (a device used to take samples from a barrel of wine) and leads you into their candle-lit caves, hand dug in 1885.\r
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You won't see the crushing machine, the fermentation tanks or the bottling area on this tour. Del Dotto's winemakers think the barrel is important, and the tour here will center on that. You'll sample the same fermented grape juice aged in different types of oak, discovering flavor differences contributed by the wood, and taste different base wines (same grape, different year) aged in the same kind of wood, revealing the grapes' contribution.\r
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The one-hour-plus tour ends with the ultimate wine pairing: Del Dotto's wine and ch
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