Andrew Delaplaine - Napa Valley: The Delaplaine 2019 Long Weekend Guide

NAPA VALLEY

The Delaplaine

2019 Long Weekend Guide

Andrew Delaplaine

NO BUSINESS HAS PAID A SINGLE PENNY OR GIVEN ANYTHING TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS BOOK.

Senior Editors - Renee & Sophie Delaplaine

Senior Writer - James Cubby

Copyright by Gramercy Park Press - All rights reserved.

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TABLES OF CONTENTS

Rutherford

LONG WEEKEND SERIES

L IKE YOU, WHEN IM heading into a new place, I have bought travel guides and toiled through them hour after hour trying to extract from the book the essence of the city or region I was visiting. Sometimes, sadly, I spent more hours reading the book than I did in the town it purported to tell me about. To judge by the size of some of these books, youd think I was planning on spending my life there, not just a few days.

By including exhaustive detail in their guidebooks, many writers actually end up obscuring the essence of the city theyre writing about rather than revealing it.

If youre going to stay two or more weeks in a place, then by all means do your homework. There are hundreds of guides, both in print and online, to assist you.

But if youve only got 3 or 4 days, your needs really are different.

I would want to know:

= LODGINGS . What would be the best hotels or B&Bs or inns to choose from? I would want a choice of 4 or 5 places in different budget categories. (For the kid with a backpack will be on a different budget than someone on an expense account. A retired couple will have different wants and needs than a family of four.)

= RESTAURANTS . What would be a good selection of restaurants, again within different budget levels, that would represent the area Im visiting? Again, whether expensive or cheap, which of the thousands of places to eat will give me a feel for the town?

= ATTRACTIONS . Of all the attractions and things to do, which are the most important that will leave me with memories that Ive really seen the place?

= SHOPPING? Something different and out of the way reflective of the area. Not the big chains, whether that chain is Tiffany or the Gap. Something local.

Rather than craft a definitive itinerary for you the way many others have done, Ive expanded the listings in each section so that you could get a good range of the offerings availableso you can pick and choose among them to craft your own special Long Weekend.

WHY NAPA VALLEY?

D EPENDING ON THE TIME of year, theres nothing more fun than taking a trip out to the wine country, especially Napa and Sonoma counties. In fact, after you make your first trip, youll come back and focus on this special part of America, so completely a world unto itself that theres literally nothing else like it in this country. I am in the wine trade myself (my family produces a fine sparkling wine using grapes from Napa and Sonoma), so I know a little bit about it.

The two valleys are just an hours drive north of San Francisco.

The two counties are quite different in layout and attitude. Though Napa is more famous than Sonoma, winemaking actually began in Sonoma (in 1835) a whole generation before vineyards were planted in the 35-mile long Napa Valley. And while vineyards line Napa from one end to the other, in Sonoma there still are fields where vineyards have not been planted.

W HILE NAPA IS NARROW and more confined, in Sonoma, the land extends out from the Russian River far and wide, giving you a much more expansive sensation. Between Napa and Sonoma, there are hundreds of wineries large and small. Napa has some 45,000 acres planted with grapes. While Napa has all the celebrities, the high-end restaurants, the luxurious spas, Sonoma really feels like a rustic farming area by comparison. Much less razzmatazz. The good thing about both valleys is that theyre right next to each other, so its easy to enjoy both. But here our focus is on Napa.

Wine lovers didnt really begin flocking to this area until the 1980s, and the lodgings at the time were limited to a few inns and some B&Bs.

These days, however, youll find superior lodgings to match anywhere in the world, complementing the high quality of the wines produced here.

Nobody thinks of this, but did you know theres a Veterans Home in Yountville? Now, I ask you, if you had been in the military, wouldnt you want to retire here?

GETTING ABOUT

M OST PEOPLE COME TO Napa by way of San Francisco, and the town of Napa itself is only 55 miles from San Francisco. The towns strung along the Valley moving north are: Napa, Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford, St. Helena and Calistoga. Sonoma County is just a few miles to the east of Napa Valley.

The Valley is only 35 miles from one end to the other, so (traffic permitting) it only takes a half hour to go from Napa in the south to Calistoga in the north on Hwy. 29 (also known as the St. Helena Hwy.).

T HE Silverado Trail , some 2 miles away, run parallel to Hwy. 29, and during peak traffic, makes a faster alternative if youre in a hurry. Also has splendid views.

High season runs from March through the harvest in October, and this is when the place is jammed with tourists. I heartily advise people making their second trip to come in those fringe areas of the off-season, early March or early November, lets say, to get a sense of what its like to really live here. Deals are more easily had in the off-season, of course, and you end up spending more time with the locals than you (or they) have time for in the crush of summer.

T HE DRUNK DRIVING LAWS are very severe in California, and they are firmly enforced. Even if you drive up, unless you have a dedicated driver, it sometimes is a good idea to hire a driver. These drivers also act as tour guides, so youre getting a lot more than the ride.

BUS SERVICE

There is a bus service called The Vine running up and down the Valley thats easy to use.