Napa, California
A farm town that became the most expensive vineyard on earth
Napa is a city of roughly 80,000 at the foot of a thirty-mile valley that makes some of the world's most sought-after wine and hosts several million visitors a year to drink it. It is lovely, serious about food and drink, prone to fire, and priced for people who do not live there.
The Wappo and Patwin peoples were here first; Mexican land grants followed, and Nathan Coombs laid out the town of Napa on the river in 1847, a year before the Gold Rush filled it with people. It was incorporated as a city in 1872, the date we use, and lived on river trade, cattle, grain and tanneries. Charles Krug made the valley's first commercial wine in 1861, Beringer and Inglenook followed in the 1870s, and then phylloxera and Prohibition all but wiped the industry out. The revival is a postwar story: Robert Mondavi's winery in 1966, the Agricultural Preserve of 1968 that stopped the valley becoming suburbs, and the Judgment of Paris in 1976, when Napa wines beat the French in a blind tasting and the world noticed. A magnitude-6 earthquake in 2014 and the fires of 2017 and 2020 are the recent scars. The city has roughly 80,000 people; the county about 135,000.
The valley is about thirty miles long and a few wide, running north from San Pablo Bay between the Mayacamas and the Vaca ranges, with Highway 29 up the west side and the Silverado Trail up the east. The city of Napa sits at the bottom, the only real town: a revived downtown of restaurants and tasting rooms on First Street and the Oxbow Public Market by the river, with older neighbourhoods around it and American Canyon's newer subdivisions to the south. Carneros, in the cool wind off the bay, grows the Pinot and Chardonnay. Then the villages run north like beads: Yountville, restaurants and the French Laundry; Oakville and Rutherford, the Cabernet heartland of the big names; St Helena, the valley's prettiest main street; and Calistoga at the top, hot springs, mud baths and a rougher, older charm. Sonoma is over the hills to the west.
Wine is the business and the culture: some four hundred wineries, Cabernet Sauvignon above all, tasting rooms that now mostly require appointments and charge accordingly, and a hospitality trade built on them — the Wine Train, balloon flights over the vines at dawn, cycling the Silverado Trail, and restaurants from Thomas Keller's down to the taco trucks that feed the vineyard crews. The Culinary Institute of America teaches at Greystone in St Helena and at Copia in Napa. BottleRock in May brings a rock festival to the fairground; harvest, from August to October, is the valley's real season, when the crush is on and the roads fill with trucks of grapes. Sport is modest — the Procore Championship brings the PGA Tour to Silverado each September, Napa Valley 1839 FC plays summer soccer, and the Bay Area's teams are an hour away. The mustard in the vineyards in February is the local spectacle.
The hard parts are cost and fire. Housing is among the dearest of any rural county in America, and the people who pick the grapes, pour the wine and make the beds mostly commute from Vallejo, Fairfield and American Canyon; the valley's largely Latino workforce is essential and mostly invisible in the marketing. Wildfire has become an annual dread — the 2017 Atlas and Tubbs fires, the 2020 Glass Fire that took wineries and homes — and smoke can spoil a harvest even where the flames do not reach. Drought, water, earthquakes and weekend traffic on Highway 29 fill the county supervisors' agenda, along with the perennial fight over how many events a winery may host. There is no transit to speak of and a designated driver is not optional. What it offers is a landscape as lovely as any in California, an hour from San Francisco, a serious food culture and a climate that suits vines and people alike.
Where People Live
Downtown Napa & the Oxbow
First Street's tasting rooms, restaurants and the restored Uptown and Napa Valley Opera House theatres, the riverfront, and the Oxbow Public Market's food hall across the bend. The one place in the valley you can do on foot.
Carneros
The cool, windswept south end by the bay, shared with Sonoma — Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, sparkling houses like Domaine Carneros, and the di Rosa art centre. Fog in the morning, sheep in the vines.
Yountville
A village of a few thousand with more Michelin stars per head than anywhere in America — the French Laundry, Bouchon, its bakery — plus the balloon launches and the veterans' home on the hill. Book months ahead.
Oakville & Rutherford
The Cabernet heartland along Highway 29: Mondavi, Opus One, Inglenook, Beaulieu and the 'Rutherford dust', with the Oakville Grocery for sandwiches. The valley's most expensive dirt.
St Helena
The prettiest main street in the valley, stone buildings and boutiques, Beringer and Charles Krug at the town's edge, the Culinary Institute at Greystone, and the country club money that lives in the hills.
Calistoga
The top of the valley: hot springs, mud baths, the Old Faithful geyser, Chateau Montelena of Judgment-of-Paris fame, and a Western main street that is scruffier and friendlier than St Helena's. Closest to the fire country.
The Silverado Trail & the hillsides
The quieter road up the east side, past Stags Leap and the Vaca foothills to Howell Mountain and, on the west, Mount Veeder and Spring Mountain — where the cyclists ride and the cult wineries hide.
American Canyon
The commuter city at the valley's mouth, off Highway 29 to Vallejo — subdivisions, warehouses and the homes of many of the people who work up-valley. Not on the tourist map, which is the point.
Must-see attractions
Restaurants & places to go
De Tierra Vineyards
vineyards, wineries, winery tasting rooms · detierra.com
Airports
Buchanan Field (CCR) 24 mi to the centre
Concord, CA, US — Indoor waiting areas, but some gates board by bus or on foot across the apron — plan for the weather on the day.
Napa County Airport (APC) 5.4 mi to the centre
Napa, CA, US — Indoor waiting area, but you walk out to the aircraft to board — bring an umbrella or a coat if the forecast is poor.
Marin County Airport - Gnoss Field (NOT) 18 mi to the centre
Novato, CA, US — Indoor waiting area, but you walk out to the aircraft to board — bring an umbrella or a coat if the forecast is poor.
Capell Valley Airport 13 mi to the centre
Napa, CA, US
Local transit
Vine
Bus · Napa County buses, including the valley route to Calistoga. · Fares: Cash or Clipper
Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (Capitol C
Bus · Oakland, California · Schedules & GTFS data (official feed)
Fairfield and Suisun Transit (FAST Transit)
Bus · Fairfield, California · Schedules & GTFS data
Golden Gate Transit
Bus · San Francisco, California · Schedules & GTFS data (official feed)
Sonoma County Airport Express
Bus · San Mateo, California · Schedules & GTFS data
Trains & rail
Napa Valley Wine Train
Rail operator
Amtrak
National rail
Coaches & shuttles
Greyhound
Intercity coach
Jefferson Lines
Intercity coach
MegaBus
Intercity coach
Trailways
Intercity coach
Living Here
Getting about
- A car is assumed. Highway 29 is the main road and clogs at weekends; the Silverado Trail is the locals' alternative. Vine Transit runs buses up the valley and to the Vallejo ferry, useful but infrequent; the Napa Valley Wine Train is a lunch, not a commute.
- San Francisco (SFO) and Oakland (OAK) airports are 60 to 90 minutes away, Sacramento about an hour, and Santa Rosa (STS) is the small regional option across the hills. The Vallejo ferry connects to San Francisco's Ferry Building.
- The Vine Trail is a paved cycle path that will eventually run the length of the valley; the Napa-to-Yountville and Calistoga-to-St Helena sections are open and popular. Cycling the Silverado Trail between tastings is a fine day if someone else is driving home.
- Drink-driving enforcement is serious and the roads are dark and winding; use a designated driver, a hired driver or the rideshares, which exist but thin out up-valley.
Health
- Dial 911. Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa is the main hospital; Adventist Health St Helena serves the upper valley and Kaiser's nearest hospital is in Vallejo. Urgent-care clinics handle the minor things.
- Wildfire season runs roughly August to November; sign up for Napa County's emergency alerts, know your evacuation route, and expect smoke advisories in bad years. Earthquakes are a fact of life — 2014's did real damage downtown.
- American healthcare bills at full price; visitors must carry travel insurance, and residents' cover comes through employers or Covered California.
Work & study
- Napa Valley College is the community college, with a viticulture and winery technology programme on its own vineyard; UC Davis, an hour east, is the world's leading wine science school, and the Culinary Institute of America runs its California campus at Greystone.
- Wine and everything around it — growing, making, selling, pouring, hosting — is the economy, followed by healthcare, county government and construction. Harvest work is seasonal and heavily dependent on immigrant labour, some of it on H-2A visas.
- Housing is the obstacle to every job; employers up-valley struggle to hire because staff cannot afford to live near the work, and the commute from Solano County is the norm.
Money & manners
- US dollars; cards everywhere. Tip 18–20% in restaurants and a few dollars per person at tastings if the host was good; sales tax of roughly 8–9% is added at the register and hotel taxes are steep. Tasting fees run from $40 to well over $100, often waived with a purchase.
- Most wineries now require reservations and close by 5pm; the 'wine country casual' dress code means no need for a jacket but nothing scruffy either. Spitting is normal and encouraged. Do not pick the grapes.
- Summer is hot, dry and golden, with cool nights; winter (December to March) is green, wet and quiet, with the mustard bloom in February and the best hotel rates. Harvest, in September and October, is the busiest and most expensive time.
- The valley is small-town and neighbourly beneath the money; drive politely, do not honk at tractors, and remember that the people serving you probably drove an hour to do it.