Del Dotto Vineyards is located on Atlas Peak Road, just off of the Silverado Trail. If you are a true wine aficionado, this is a must visit winery. They have one of the most unique and unusual tours available in the valley.
The winery itself is a little difficult to find (look for the water tower). It is located in the historic Hedgeside Distillery Building and has only a very small sign. The building was built originally in 1884 and includes one of only six original caves (hand dug!) still in use in the valley.
You MUST make an appointment for the Cave and Barrel tastings and trust me, it is well worth it (cost $20/person as of this writing). The tour is advertised as taking about 45 minutes. We were there at least that and possibly longer.
This is one of the few tours that I have been on in Napa or Sonoma where I really learned something (and not in a boring or stodgy way). During the tour you will take a more or less "horizontal" tasting where you taste the same wine from barrels of different origin. It was amazing how big a difference the different oaks made. Some of the barrels include those made from Missouri oak, Virginia oak, Pennsylvania oak and Troncias and Nevers from French oak.
The most surprising one to me was the Missouri oak, which imparts a flavor so sweet that you feel like you are drinking liquid caramel, no matter how young the wine is.
Another unusual thing about Del Dotto is that they will actually bottle wine straight from the barrel for you, if you happen to take a liking to one of the tastings. No other winery I know of does that. You can truly get something unique, as the wines are normally blended before they are sold.
At the end of the tour, you get to try some lovely chocolate with your wine. It was a pleasant finish to an all-around wonderful tour.
The Del Dotto family is not one of the snobby wine families. You will quite possibly run into a family member manning the front counter or wandering in the caves.
I highly recommend this tour. I can't repeat that enough.