Napa Valley
Napa Valley, in the Bay Area in California, is one of the main wine growing regions of the United States of America and one of the major wine regions of the world. It is also known for its gourmet restaurants, cafes, and spa-treatment centers.
Cities and towns
From north to south the main locales are:
Understand
Napa Valley, a world famous wine area, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in California. More than five million visitors come each year, often overcrowding the roadways on summer weekends. Peak times are the summer months and the harvest "crush" during September and October. Napa Valley is home to more than two hundred wineries. With wine as a focus, great dining naturally emerged to complement it. The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena supplies a steady stream of well-trained chefs, supplementing the already prestigious chefs drawn by Napa Valley's reputation and locale.
Get in
By plane
The nearest international airports are in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento. San Francisco is the largest airport of the group presented. Here, a traveler arriving at San Francisco Airport can easily rent a car or reserve a limo to take them to Napa Valley.The trip is about an hour and a half long over the Golden Gate Bridge to scenic Route 1.
By car
From San Francisco:
- Highway 101 North over the Golden Gate Bridge, to Highway 37;
- Highway 37 East towards Vallejo/Napa, to Highway 121;
- Highway 121 North towards Napa to Highway 29 North.
Use Highway 29 or Silverado Trail to see the valley. They run north-south along the valley.
- Wine country bus or limousine tours are available from San Francisco or from Napa Valley towns.
- Napa can be reached by shuttle providers in San Francisco.
Get around
- Bike riding is a popular activity in the valley, and great way to see the scenery it has to offer. There are also opportunities to cycle in the vineyards
- Walking is also enjoyed by the locals, in one of many parks, trails, and paths on expensive property.
- Napa County Transportation Planning Agency (NCTPA), Phone: +1 707 259-8631. Bus transportation throughout the Valley and within towns. Locals and tourists lacking their own vehicle may also enjoy waiting hours at a time for a bus, which more often than not will include a stop and break for another bus. Visitors who plan to use the public transit system should factor in about half day for travel within the valley.
Do
There are many other leisure activities in Napa Valley to complement fine dining and wine tours. If you are an early riser, you can take a hot air balloon ride. There is also horseback riding, boating, fishing, gliding, golfing, bicycling and spa treatments.
- The Napa Valley Wine Train. In Napa.
- Bathe in the hot springs and/or have a mud bath in Calistoga.
- . Phone 1-800-FLY-NAPA. Balloon flights from wherever the wind is best in the north valley.
- Golf There are 10 golf courses located at towns throughout the valley.
Wine Tours and tasting are the main reason why people go to Napa Valley. To see how their favorite wine is made from stem to bottle is often the pasion the drives people to Napa. People may go to Napa valley to taste wines before they invest in them.
Eat
The thing about wine, of course, is that it has a synergy with food; they enhance each other. Accordingly, food is elevated here. There are many excellent chefs in this area and many great dining facilities. One most famous place that must be mentioned is 'French Laundry' in Yountville. It is very famous, very expensive and very hard to get a reservation. Reservations open two months in advance and you must be right on top of it. Try if you must, but there are many other delicious options.
The Valley and its wines beg to be brought on a picnic. It might just be the best way to have lunch. Some wineries cater to picnickers, notably V. Sattui which has a nice picnic area and even a deli, but others don't want picnickers tying up their limited parking. Some encourage picnics, but only by reservation. One establishment built on Napa Valley picnicking is Oakville Grocery in Oakville, famous for its deli and picnic supplies.
If you want to picnic or even tailgate you can stop at the Oakville Grocer. Its located at 7856 Saint Helena Highway, Oakville California (707)-944-8802. There are necessary pantry items such as cheese, crackers and specialty pates. It is open daily but hours vary. Call ahead for specialty sandwiches, picnic baskets or box lunches.
If it is an excellent lunch that you are looking for, you might want to conbine your tour at Domaine Chandon with a lunch at Etoile at Domaine Chandon. Its open for lunch on Thursday through Monday and it has received the best of awards for excellence in 2010.
Bouchon feels like an authentic, upscale French bistro. Some of its specialties are pan-roasted trout, classic French onion soup and duck foie gras. Reservations are necessary. It is open daily for lunch and dinner. Entrees are 16 to 40 dollars and there is always a great list of specials.
Drink
Most wineries offer tastings and/or tours of their products. The form this takes varies greatly. The largest, most well known wineries such as Mondavi and Beringer are open daily with large hosting facilities, guided tours of the operation and reserve rooms for tasting select, more expensive wines. The many smaller wineries may offer tastings only by appointment, but your tour or tasting may be conducted by the owner. Most vineyards charge a small fee for the tastings, especially at the more popular vineyards, perhaps $5–$10. Winery tours are generally very interesting and informative. Reserve room tastings provide an opportunity to sample expensive wines without having to spend a larger amount for a bottle. Sometimes the tasting fee can be applied to the cost of a bottle purchased.
Popular Large Wineries
- Beringer Vineyards in St. Helena
- Grgich Hills Cellar, in Rutherford
- Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville
- V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena
- Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga
- The Hess Collection Winery in Napa
- Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga
Stay safe
Napa Valley enjoys very low crime rates and is generally considered to be a relatively safe part of California. Emergency response (police, fire, and paramedics) can be reached by dialing 911.
Note that California's drunk driving laws are extremely strict and accidents happen often on Highway 29 right after the wineries close around 6PM. Designate or hire a driver and be safe.
Go next
- 1 Sonoma County
- 2 Lake County
- 3 Yolo County - With extensive farmlands, Napa County's northeastern neighbor offers numerous opportunities for visitors to engage in agritourism: farmer's markets are held regularly, organic farms offer tours and the opportunity to pick your own produce, and more than 35 wineries can be found in the county. The college town of Davis is home to California's third-largest state university and boasts the highest number of bikes per capita in the USA, a statistic that led the US Bicycling Hall of Fame to move to the town in 2010.
- 4 Solano County - Located to the southeast of Napa County, Solano County is far more rural than the other Bay Area counties, and includes significant portions of the California Delta, as well as parts of San Pablo Bay. Two of the county's cities served as early state capitals: Vallejo was the capital in 1852 and again in 1853, while Benicia served as the capital from February 1853 until February 1854; today Benicia Capitol State Historic Park provides the opportunity for visitors to explore the Capitol building from that era.
- 5 Contra Costa County - Napa County's neighbor across the Bay to the south is a primarily residential county that offers a vast array of food, shopping, and lodging options for Bay Area visitors. The landscape is dominated by Mount Diablo, a peak that provides excellent hiking opportunities and, on clear days, summit views that stretch for well over 100 miles in all directions. Other attractions include the John Muir Historic Site in Martinez, the estate of Nobel winning playwright Eugene O'Neill in Danville, and a WWII shipyard, now a national historic site, in Richmond.
- 6 Marin County