Napa Valley travel guide
Known throughout California for Cabernet and luxury wineries, Napa Valley is the birthplace of the modern Wine Country and all its forms, from cuisine to style. The valley, almost 50 km long and 8 to 1.5 km wide, is crossed by two important driveways, the Hwy 29 (St Helena Hwy) and the Silverado Trail, which a study by the American Automobile Association has positioned at the eighth-placed among the most congested tourist routes in the country in 2005. Traffic is particularly intense on summer weekends and in autumn, especially around the homonymous city of Napa, located at the beginning of the valley and full of exciting attractions.
In 1968 Napa Country was declared “Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve”, resulting in the blocking of all development projects in the valley for non-agricultural purposes; in particular, the law stated that no one could detect a piece of land with a surface area of fewer than 16 hectares. Through this protection plan, it was possible to preserve the beauty of the landscape of the valley, at the same time making land prices skyrocket. Only the rich can afford to buy and build in this area, which is why there are so many extremely futuristic wineries from an architectural point of view. The trend is to build buildings that in themselves represent a monument capable of attracting the attention of visitors, regardless of the excellent wines that can be tasted and purchased inside.
The most popular wine in Napa Valley is cabernet sauvignon (Cab), proposed by practically all wineries not only because here are the ideal conditions for growing this particular grape, but also because of the very high prices it has on the market. . Many of the 230 wineries in the area are small in size and, due to restrictive county laws, can only receive visitors by reservation. Inside there are both wines to taste on the spot and bottles to buy and take away, united by the generally high price. To save money, look for free tasting vouchers available at various hotels and tourist information points.
Proceeding from north to south these are some of the major wineries in Napa Valley: the Chateau Montelena, which is housed in a beautiful stone building from 1882 and produces excellent chardonnay and zinfandel; the Clos Pegase, which houses an incredible collection of modern art which includes Jean Dubuffet and Henry Moore; the Sterling, famous for the funicular that leads to the company located on top of a hill from which you can enjoy excellent views of the valley; the Duckhorn, appreciated for its gorgeous Merlot and frequented above all by the local bourgeoisie; the Hall, recently opened but already established for cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc and merlot; the Frog’s Leap, where winding paths climb through expanses of orchards; the Trefethen, registered in the National Register of Historic Places for its beautiful gravity barn from 1886; and the Hess Collection, also enriched by the presence of some works of art by the likes of Francis Bacon and Louis Soutter.
The capital of the valley is Napa, a city of 70,000 inhabitants in recent years at the center of a real economic boom. Here you will find Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, a cultural center that brings together everything related to the Wine Country recently opened for a cost of $ 50 million. Interactive exhibits, tasting stations, exciting installations and culinary demonstrations are just some of the things you will encounter when visiting the Copia, where outdoor concerts, film screenings and cultural debates are also held. Also in Napa, you cannot miss the Vintners’ Collective, where you can taste the products of 18 small-sized wineries, and the Rosa Preserve, an open-air art gallery spread over 87 hectares full of modern works.
15km north of Napa in Yountville, one of the most charming towns in the Napa Valley. Among the things to see in the Napa Valley Museum, a modern museum of over 12,000 square meters that illustrates the cultural history of the place and exhibits the paintings of various local artists, but in the center, there are also markets, prestigious shops and luxury restaurants. Not far away is St Helena, famous for the Silverado Museum and the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone. The first is a fascinating museum that exhibits the collection of memorabilia of Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous writer who lived in Napa Valley with his wife in 1880; the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, on the other hand, is a campus dedicated to the permanent education of catering professionals based in a Christian Brothers building. Finally, it is worth seeing Calistoga, the least westernized of the villages in the valley, where the small City Hall of 1902 and the Sharpsteen Museum, opened by a former Disney designer and focused on the history of the local community, are of interest.
The climate is temperate, characterized by a rather limited temperature range between summer and winter. The hottest month of the year is August, when the temperature fluctuates between 28 and 13 degrees, while the coldest ones are December and January, characterized by highs around 13 degrees and lows just above zero. Even in winter, it is rare for it to drop below zero at night, but occasionally short snowfalls can occur that rarely leave large accumulations on the ground. Precipitation is generally between 700 and 800 mm of rain per year, most of which falls between November and March.
The best airports to land in and then leave to explore Napa Valley are the Oakland International Airport, located about seventy kilometers south of Napa and served by numerous national companies, and the Sacramento International Airport, less than one hundred kilometers from the town and connected to all major American destinations. Alternatively, you can count on the small Napa County Airport (or Napa Valley Airport), which has three airstrips and is less than 10 kilometers from downtown Napa. Once on land, to move around the valley, there is nothing better than renting a car.
