is a tasting room winery collective (formerly known as Wineries of Napa Valley), located in the Napa Town Center in downtown Napa. This is one of the older tasting rooms in downtown Napa having operated continuously since 2003. The Napa Town Center contains many shops serviced by open air walkways, restaurants, clothing, jewelry and more. TopFlight is located right next to the usually busy Napa Tourist Information Center (www.napatouristinfo.com), which by the way is a *great* place to pick up winery tips, winery, restaurant, hotel and tour guides and recommendations for local travel. There are always several “concierges” at the main counter willing to answer your questions. Lots of free printed information!
TopFlight offers wine from the following Napa Valley wineries: Burgess, Destino, Fore Family (their main vineyard is in Lake County to the north but they make and source fruit within Napa County) Girard, Goosecross and Nord. The nice thing about TopFlight is their vintners tend to stay with them for a long time unlike some of the other collectives that tend to rotate wineries seemingly every few months. Often area collectives are for wineries that do not have tasting rooms but several of the wineries represented here all have additional tasting rooms. Choose 5 wines from the represented vintners for your tasting.
Note that despite some of the wineries having their own tasting rooms, some of the wines poured here often differ slightly than what each winery offers in their own tasting room. For example we sampled Goosecross’s Sparkling Rose here while it was not served at their own tasting room.
How many winery tasting rooms offer beer tasting in the Napa Valley? This is so rare in fact, we know of only two – this one and Napa Smith/Bourassa. For every group that enjoys wine tasting invariably there is someone who also enjoys beer. Here, a separate bar for beer is open in conjunction with the wine bar. A number of local micro brews are on top as well as from bottle. Hang out at the beer bar, or sit down at either indoor or outdoor tables or find their couch in the corner. Note the strategic location of the TV monitor – its above the bar and most likely will be playing any of a number of sporting events.
There are so few tasting rooms in the Napa Valley that offer tastes of more than one sweet wine that we can count these on less than two hands. TopFlight is one of them. Some of their vintners make dessert wines so several of these are available on their open tasting menu.
During our latest visit three distinct styles of dessert wines were being poured. The 2010 Goosecross Orange Muscat is a lighter styled sweet wine that shows best when combined with food – perhaps spicy food would be a good accompaniment. Our favorite is the 2008 Fore Family Vineyards Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. This wine is rich without being overly so, sweet without being syrupy. The quality of fruit certainly shows in the glass – pineapple, passion fruit and other tropical notes show on the nose – rounded, creamn – layered flavors. Delicious! The Destino Late Harvest Viognier is a viscous – very sweet wine – with intense concentrated flavors of supremely ripe grapes.
There is a very informal relaxed and friendly atmosphere here. Be sure to take the “wine quiz” usually sitting on one of their tables. This location is a Wi-Fi spot for Internet access and outdoor seating is also available in their small fenced off patio section. Always wondered about grape varietals? There is a very nice framed graphic listing a plethora of the world’s wine grapes on the wall to your right as you walk in. Ask about the Downtown Napa Wine Tasting Card – multiple downtown area tasting rooms participate in this – for a one-time fee you can visit & taste at each of their tasting rooms. You can buy this card in each of the participating tasting rooms. Visit: www.topflightnapa.com
NOTE: This review has been archived.
REASON: Their tasting room in downtown Napa closed down.
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