Castello di Amorosa

Castello di Amorosa is the most improbable building in Napa Valley and the one children and skeptics remember longest. On a wooded hillside off Highway 29 between St. Helena and Calistoga, fourth-generation vintner Dario Sattui spent fifteen years building a medieval Tuscan castle using medieval designs and methods, and opened it to the public in April 2007. The numbers are staggering: 107 rooms across eight levels, four of them underground, about 141,000 square feet in all, five defensive towers with battlements, a drawbridge, a courtyard, a chapel, a loggia and a deep well, with 1,000-pound hand-hewn doors from Italy, hand-forged ironwork by Italian artisans and more than 170 shipping containers of antique bricks and tiles imported from Europe. The Great Hall has a 22-foot coffered ceiling, frescoes inspired by Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government in Siena and a 500-year-old fireplace; below, the Grand Barrel Room spreads under forty Roman cross-vaulted brick ceilings, and yes, there is a torture chamber stocked with antique devices. Ninety-five of the 107 rooms are devoted to winemaking, and the wines are Italian in spirit — Pinot Grigio, Sangiovese, Barbera, a Super Tuscan-style blend — alongside Napa Cabernet, Chardonnay and dessert wines, with grape juice for non-drinkers. The castle is open daily from 10am to 5:30pm by reservation, with tours that walk you through the courtyards, halls and cellars before a tasting, and tasting-only options for those short on time. It is touristy by design and proud of it, and wine purists sometimes sniff, but as theater, craftsmanship and sheer obsession it is unmatched in California.

The backstory is half the fun. Dario Sattui's great-grandfather founded a winery in San Francisco in the 1880s; Dario revived the family name with V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena in the 1970s, and then, after years spent touring castles and monasteries in Italy, decided to build his own. He insisted on authenticity in method as well as look — stone laid by hand, iron forged by Italian craftsmen, antique materials salvaged from across Europe — and the result feels less like a theme park and more like a real fortress that happens to have been finished in the twenty-first century. Notable visitors have ranged from politicians to film stars, and the castle has become one of the most photographed places in the valley.

Visiting well. Book a guided tour and tasting rather than a tasting alone if it is your first visit: the guides unlock rooms, explain the building's details and the winemaking, and finish in the cellars with a seated or standing tasting. Weekends and harvest season sell out, so reserve ahead, and arrive a little early to walk the courtyards and terraces, where the views reach across the vineyards. Wear comfortable shoes for the stairs and uneven stone floors, and bring a layer, because the underground levels stay cool even in summer. Families are a natural fit here: children love the drawbridge, the armor and the dungeon, and grape juice tastings mean they are not left out. Check the current age policy for each experience when you book.

Fitting it into a day. The castle sits at the north end of the valley, about ten minutes south of Calistoga, so it pairs perfectly with an afternoon soak or mud bath in town, or with Sterling Vineyards' gondola nearby. From Napa, allow around forty minutes each way on Highway 29, more on harvest weekends. As at every Napa winery, plan a designated driver or a car service; the tasting pours are generous and the road back is busy. Closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, with shortened hours on Christmas Eve.