The high school I attended in Sioux City, Iowa, was called "The Castle on the Hill" because it looked like a castle, and it was on a very modest hill. But to a teenager, it was just like going into a real castle.

Memories of that castle were brought back last week when

I went to another castle on a hill -- Castello di Amorosa, the "Castle of Love," Darryl Sattui built on Diamond Mountain just south of Calistoga. That truly is a real castle on a real hill.

This isn't a Disneyland-type castle. It is a replica of the type of castle found in Italy in the 13th century, built with many authentic materials and techniques.

Sattui imported 850,000 bricks that are 200 years old, all hand-made in Europe. The stones for the walls were made by stonecutters who carved them by hand as craftsmen did hundreds of years ago.

"I found master masons in Italy and brought them here," Sattui said, "... but they knew only modern architecture and didn't know how to work on this. I sent them home and used people from here who were taught how to do it."

Everything a centuries-old Italian castle had is found in this one -- among the 107 rooms one will see a Great Hall, a Knight's Room, a church, secret passageways and even a torture chamber. Towers are complete with battlements and flying pennants. There's a moat in front of the main entrance, although it's dry, and visitors enter over a drawbridge, which is always in the down position.

The only thing not 13th century-oriented is the state-of-the-art winery housed on the property. This is where Sattui makes his Castello di Amorosa label, not to be confused with his V. Sattui brand made on the valley floor in a St. Helena winery. That facility also shows Sattui's fondness for historical buildings as it looks like it could be 200 years old.

Nearly 14 years passed since Sattui started building his castle. And he spent about $30 million on it. As one toured the edifice, it was easy to see why it took so long and cost so much.

He purchased the property in 1993 and said, "At the time I had no intention of building another winery." But he had been dreaming of building a castle for many years, and this gave him a perfect location for it.

The castle is about two miles south of Calistoga, at 4045 N. St. Helena Highway. It's not visible from the road -- although it can be seen on Silverado Trail at Larkmead Lane.

The first official event was a walkabout and wine tasting earlier this week, though the castle has been open informally for several weeks. TheJune 19 event was for fellow vintners, who oohed and aahed as they wandered from room to room along with local political dignitaries.

Sattui conducted an informal tour for his guests -- who better to do so than the man who knows every nook, cranny and passageway of the 120,000-square-foot building.

The Great Hall is 72 feet long, 30 feet wide and 22 feet high, and all the walls are covered with frescos painted to look as if they are hundreds of years old. Hanging from an ornate ceiling are two hand-made iron chandeliers, and two large wooden tables dominate the center of the room.

After the group left the Great Hall, Sattui asked, "Did anyone notice the pillars?" When no one responded, he added, "There are seven pillars, all different. I spent a lot of money on them and no one notices." That's because there is so much to see in just that room alone, and there were 106 other rooms in the castle.

Next was a visit to the church Sattui plans to have sanctified. After that, Mass will be celebrated in Latin every week.

The church has a confessional booth, and as guests were leaving, Sattui joked, "If anyone wants to bare your souls, I can help you."

The torture chamber was a curiosity for most of the tour members. Sattui showed three cells for holding prisoners while they waited their turn in the iron maiden, an upright metal cabinet with spikes inside that were slowly driven into the prisoner. He explained how it worked and added, "They had brilliant and genius ways to torture people then."

Walking through the four underground levels, one sees barrel after barrel -- 3,500 of them, all neatly stacked two high. Sattui said about 2,500 of them belonged to V. Sattui winery and he was storing them in the castle. Current Castello di Amorosa production is about 8,000 cases.

He said he plans to age the Castello di Amorosa brand in barrels 20-22 months, plus an additional two years after the wines have been bottled.

The castle will no doubt become one of the must-see stops on tourists' agendas, and certainly help sell wine. The Castello di Amorosa brand, like V. Sattui, is available only at the winery or online -- when placing an online order customers can mix varietals, but there's a minimum purchase of six bottles.

In addition to both being castles on hills, there's another similarity between Castello di Amorosa in Napa Valley and Central High School in Sioux City -- both have torture chambers, but at Central High we called them classrooms.