I thought I was in Tuscany, Italy, but I was actually in the suburbs of San Francisco.

I have been to many red wineries in France or Italy, so I changed my destination to Castello di Amorosa Winery in Santa Rosa, a suburb of San Francisco, USA. It is a replica of an authentic 14th-century Tuscan castle winery built by the fourth-generation winemaker Dario Sattui. Going back to the Italian family tradition, the stones and building materials here were all shipped from Europe and were hand-carved and painted to replicate the sense of a European manor, to commemorate the family's Italian tradition and love of medieval architecture. Their family started growing grapes and building a winery in Italy in the 1840s. Their ancestors came to San Francisco during the global gold rush in 1848 and settled here to open a winery. However, the third generation closed the winery during the Prohibition in San Francisco in 1920, reopened it for winemaking in the 1940s and 1950s, and became popular again in the 1970s. The winery castle has guided tours that allow you to visit the vineyards, the castle chapel, the winery, taste wine, and enjoy lunch at the winery castle, starting at about US$70.