Today I took a sightseeing trip up Highway 29 to Calistoga, about 27 miles north of our RV park in downtown Napa.
(By the way, Napa is a very nice town, with all the amenities that one would want. It’s got a nice climate, too. There’s a river that runs through it, and some developer has re-developed a mill site along the river into a chic hot spot, with restaurants, shops, offices, etc. Nice job.)
Calistoga is a much smaller town, situated at the top of the Napa Valley, so a trip up there and back provides the tourist a pretty good sampling of the beautiful wine country.
Lots of vineyards, hills covered with Coastal Oaks, ivy-covered wineries, and many turn-of-the-century Victorian buildings. Here’s one in St. Helena, which is part of the way to Calistoga.
The first vineyards were planted here in the 1860’s. There are now hundreds of winegrowers in the Napa Valley, and most of them have wineries/tasting rooms open to the public. As you drive up Hwy 29, you pass some well-known names: Charles Krug; Beringer; Christian Brothers; Beaulieu Vineyards; Robt. Mondavi; V. Sattui; Opus One; Sterling; etc. Many are immediately adjacent to the railroad tracks, which enables them to be serviced by the Napa Valley Wine Train.
It’s a beautiful landscape; reminds me of Italy and Spain.
Many of the old-time vintners in this valley are of Italian descent. One of them, V. Sattui, has done so well that he’s built a fancy castle in mid-Valley for weddings, upscale dinners, and wine tasting tours. It’s a classic.
The above photo is an out-building, very nice in it’s own right, which reminds me of a wonderful villa that we enjoyed in Chiusi, Italy (Tuscany).
The main building looks like this:
The Culinary Institute of America has a huge stone masterpiece near St. Helena. We’ve eaten there before with my sister Claudia, and some of our Bear Creek friends have attended cooking school there.
Here is some eye-candy that Hall Vineyards uses to attract winos cruising Hwy 29. It is a 20′ tall, stainless steel rabbit, bounding through a vineyard.
I liked the Grgich Hills Estate property, but didn’t sample the wine.
This is a vineyard fan, which keeps the air circulating when there is a frost. It’s probably eight feet across.
The wine grapes are much smaller than the table grapes that we are used to eating. Here’s a bunch:
The couple of hours that I spent cruising Hwy 29 only exposed me to a tiny fraction of the wineries and beauty of this magical valley. It is definitely one of the prettiest places in California.