HotelChatter

During a recent stay there in one of the two-cottage Family Suites, we called up the concierge desk and requested a ride down to dinner at the resort’s fine dining venue, The Farm, and were promptly picked up in the brand’s top-model sedan, the A8. Yeah, the asking price starts at just about $80,000.

Though the ride down to the restaurant was short, we managed to spend the whole time fiddling with the control panels, playing with our seat (there are massage functions in the front!), and generally poking everything in sight with a light-up button, including the 18-way power seats, and the high-resolution, full-color LCD navigation screen. The resort also has a Q7 SUV, but we liked the A8’s cushy ride so much, we asked for it to drive us back after dinner as well.

Real auto aficionados can take the experience to a whole new high-octane level with the resort’s Audi Sportscar Experience package, and get behind the wheel of some of Audi’s most powerful racing cars including the RS4, the R8, the S5 and S8…on an actual racetrack! The package includes a day of instruction from racecar drivers and the chance to take some of these fancy fast-rollers out on the track.

In the meantime, take a look at our little gallery of shots of our two-cottage suite and the ride that ferried us to the Farm.

Rates at the Carneros Inn start at $535 a night in October.

Full disclosure: Eric Rosen was a guest of the Carneros Inn for two nights, but all opinions expressed are entirely his own.