Get a taste of the good life in Napa Valley. With the heavenly small town of Yountville as your base, explore tasting rooms, restaurants, boutiques, luxe hotels and surprises along the way. Sip, sip, hurray!
EXPLORE ART
Yountville Art Walk
Begin in the birthplace of Napa Valley’s grapevines, strolling Yountville’s walkable downtown to admire 35 rotating outdoor installations and sculptures. Most art is for sale with a percentage benefiting Yountville Arts Community. Schedule a docent-led tour for a deeper dive at 707.948.2627 or Yountvillearts@yville.com. YountvilleArts.com
Napa Valley Museum
Dedicated to art, history and the environment, the Napa Valley Museum displays the creative expression of Napa Valley with seasonally rotating exhibits. Currently, a special Tiki Dreams exhibit “from far-away fantasy to pop culture phenomenon” celebrates California’s adoration of everything tiki and our country’s fascination with Polynesian culture in the 1950s and beyond. Enjoy other exhibits that document the history of the land and people of Napa Valley, and the local artists who showcase their skills in beautiful mini masterpieces.
SHOP + SIP
More than a dozen tasting rooms line the bucolic main street in Yountville. The gorgeous wine-tasting “shops” also sell goods in order to serve alcohol. Sip wine and ogle the merchandise all over town.
Hestan Vineyards
Sample five varietals from winemakers Thomas Rivers Brown and Jeff Gaffner at the Hestan Vineyards tasting salon, where wine is accompanied by dream cookware from Hestan that even Chef Thomas Keller uses. Culinary fiends will fall in love with their titanium pans and nonstick skillets, some with diamond sparkles known as “the Cadillac of pans.”
Hong Kong couple Helan and Stanley Chan (HeStan) own the Meyer Corps, the largest distributor of cookware in the U.S. Their 110-acre Hestan Vineyard estate located on Napa Valley’s remote eastern slopes produced some of our favorites—a 2017 Petite Verdot and 2017 Proprietary Red Wine both grown on the estate.
Silver Trident Winery
Book a fun potato chip and wine pairing with five wines at this tasting room featuring Ralph Lauren Home décor and design. Sit outside on the patio or inside the “dining room” area with soft plaid walls and classy furniture available for purchase. We loved Silver Trident’s rich complex aromatic Cabernet Sauvignon of blackberry pie, ripe plum, allspice and black licorice called “Twenty-Seven Fathoms” paired with Kollar bittersweet chocolates.
REST & REJUVENATE
Stay at the recently renovated 20-room North Block Hotel situated at the north end of Yountville. It feels like entering a sophisticated chic Mediterranean destination with grand arches, stonework, fountains and plants dripping off the building.
Sleek Zen bedrooms come with private garden terraces and balconies, scrumptious linens and heated bathroom floors with soaking bathtubs. For a relaxing late-night hang under the stars, pick up a complimentary evening Scotch in the lobby that pairs well with the fireplace in the lush courtyard, or sample a glass of wine from their impressive complimentary afternoon selection in the lobby. To really unwind, book a massage at North Block’s spa or spend a day at the enchanting pool-scape jacuzzi oasis hugged by foliage.
DINE
Napa Valley is a foodie paradise with a culinary scene unmatched in its fare, where dishes burst with flavors of local produce and purveyors.
Legendary restaurants abound and it feels like famed Chef Thomas Keller may own the whole block—home to six of his restaurants, including famed French Laundry, Bouchon (Bistro and Bakery), American fare at Ad Hoc and Addendum and a taste of Oaxaca, Mexico at La Calenda.
Don’t miss a peaceful sidewalk breakfast at the North Block Hotel’s Michelin-recommended Restaurant at North Block with options like light fluffy melt-in-your-mouth lemon ricotta pancakes and a Breakfast Board for two with smoked salmon, salmon roe, pickled red onions, cream cheese, farm eggs and specialty baked English muffin. Dinner features a menu inspired by the bounty of the land from the valley to the coast. Share plates like strawberry-laden crudo, fresh pasta (carbonara-filled ravioli and classic Cacio E Pepe), wood-fired pizza and a 14-day dry aged NY Sirloin with Cabernet Jus.
For Italian, try Bottega or Ciccio, where a relaxed casual festive vibe is buzzing inside. Share wood-fired pizza and pastas and be sure to try meatball stuffed peppers, suppli (similar to arancini), big ricotta gnudi balls, cacio e pepe bucatini and the hot honey pepperoni pizza. Book in advance as there can be a multi-month wait.
R+D Kitchen presents a Yountville location with culinary prowess, serving exceptional salads and sandwiches aside the freshest sushi. Order the tender steak and cheese sandwiches and the Crab Louie Salad. At night, clink bubbly under an old olive tree hanging with crystal chandeliers at romantic RH Yountville, where furniture shopping comes with a menu and vino.
Thirty minutes from Yountville, downtown Napa’s riverfront is a fun place to walk around and explore the area’s world class restaurants, shopping, art and live music venues. Try the Argentinian steakhouse Entrecot for a succulent ribeye.
WINE
Indulge in a food and wine pairing experience or a private tour of a Napa vineyard estate. There are dozens of large and small vintners to choose from.
Palmaz Estate Winery
Maybe this estate should be called “From Argentina with Love,” as an Argentinian surgeon who invented the heart balloon stent designed the estate using rocks dug from the land to create fortress-like walls. The subterranean winery and cave extend 18 stories into the rocky flank of Mount George and are home to the proprietary take on gravity-flow winemaking.
Located on a pre-Prohibition winery founded in 1881 by one of the pioneers of Napa Valley wine production, today three generations of the Palmaz family live and work on this land, combining tradition and technology to craft delicious wines. The operation is like “Willy Wonka’s House of Wine,” as a private tour will share how the winery collects data and statistics on every detail, tracking temperature, sugar and alcohol of each barrel and geographic area in real time.
Known for their extraordinary Cabs, Palmaz Vineyards tantalizes with their Chardonnay, Riesling and Muscat varietals. Book a six-course wine and food pairing with decadent bites such as a Genesee Valley Ranch rib eye skewer paired with a 2016 Cab, a dark chocolate cabernet truffle paired with a 2019 Cab and a Florencia Muscat complimented with strawberry shortcake. Book online at PalmazVineyards.com.
Cakebread Cellars
Book a private tour in advance to visit Cakebread’s Rutherford winery, where five wine tastings occur throughout the property to demonstrate how their wine pairs well with good food and company. The story begins with Ansel Adams who taught Jack Cakebread photography in the 1950s and when the sales from Jack’s coffee table book took off in San Francisco, it bankrolled a down payment for the house and land that exists today. Not a winemaker then, Jack went to UC Davis to learn viticulture and took the advice of neighbor Robert Mondavi to plant Chardonnay.
Stroll through the culinary garden and relax in the courtyard to take in the views with sips of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Soak in the magnificent architectural details and admire the floor-to-ceiling concrete eggs that look like mini spaceships, where the wine matures. Learn about how their sustainable practices encourage the grapes to convert better into wine.
Cheers to the good life!
Getting There: Take a one-hour flight from LA/Burbank to Santa Rosa or Oakland and an easy one-hour drive to Napa.