Value Season in Napa

I am not a fan of big Napa Valley cabernets. Nor can I abide the region’s buttery, oaky chardonnay. I don’t particularly like touring wineries, listening to discussions of malolactic fermentation and residual sugar, queuing up for free samples, and falling asleep in the car from overimbibing. So what was I doing wandering through The Hess Collection Winery, maker of wines I would sooner disinfect a wound with than drink? I was engaged in a quixotic mission of sorts—to find out if I could fall in love with America’s gourmet paradise even though I can’t stand its vino.

Turns out, I had given Napa Valley a bum rap. I managed to spend five days here, submitted to only one tasting, ate some of the best meals I had in all of 2008, stayed in some of the best resorts, enjoyed some of the best weather, and even found a couple of local wines I could stomach.

Lots of Americans and Europeans have the same idea, and from June to early October, Napa is glorious, but crowded, expensive, and a bit dusty. Offseason in Napa does not guarantee sunny and ninety-degree weather —sunny and sixty is more common, and it rains a couple of times each week (you’ll have to hole up by the fireplace). But you can walk into even the most popular restaurants with nary a rez, stay in five-star hotels for three-star prices, and the rain greens up the valley making it much prettier. When the mustard plants bloom in March, Napa is literally carpeted with color.

I’m not suggesting you go to Napa Valley and ignore the wineries just because of my fickle tastes. You’ll have an advantage at them in the relaxed offseason, but caveat emptor. The days of blanket free tastings are over, and when the tasting comes with a $10, $20, or $25 fee, expectations rise. Many of the best winery experiences are at small vineyards where you make an appointment and actually get to meet and talk to the winemaker. Ask around, talk to the wine geek or chef at a restaurant you like—odds are they buy from local wineries and can steer you in a neat direction—peruse the many free publications (Preiser Key seems authoritative), and do a little advance planning. Your tasting experience will be far superior.

Wineries notwithstanding, here’s a guide to my current favorites in the Napa, high-season or low.

Things To Do » Eat and Drink » Strategies » Places to Stay »

THINGS TO DO

Photo courtesy of Castello Di Amorosa

• Castello di Amorosa
Dario Sattui, whose V. Sattui winery off Highway 29 has long been the undiscriminating tourist’s first stop on the wine trail, did well for himself selling commodity wine and picnic fixin’s. So well that he plowed those earnings into the fifteen-year construction of a 107-room facsimile of a medieval Italian castle, hiring Italian artisans to execute period details and crisscrossing Italy, Hearst–style, to acquire (or commission reproductions of) ancient furnishings and design elements. At first, it looks like total kitsch, but by the end of the tour, right before the wine tasting starts, you can’t help but be awed by the audacity and attention to detail. Tours by appointment only (fee).
4045 St. Helena Hwy. N., Calistoga, 707-942-8200

• Darioush Winery
This relatively new winery is most interesting as a sociological touchstone. It’s built to resemble a Persian palace and you’ll learn everything you need to know about new money and the allure of amateur winemaking in Napa: the overpriced tastings, the lavish out-of-character surroundings, the self-referential vanity, and the large selection of expensive Persian and Mexican crafts for sale (some quite nice, I must admit).
4240 Silverado Trail, Napa, 707-257-2345

• Hess Collection
I don’t like his chardonnay, but Donald Hess has given the region a marvelous cultural gift—he filled an old stone house on his winery with a collection of modern art (changing exhibitions) that is as interesting as it is jarring, out here among the lavender.
4411 Redwood Rd., Napa, 707-255-1144

• Napa Soap Co
This off-the-highway artisanal soap maker hand-crafts small batches of amazing soaps and aromatherapy products from ingredients native to the area.
651 Main St., St. Helena, 707-963-5010

• Oxbow Public Market
This marvelously attractive miniversion of San Francisco’s legendary Ferry Building Farmers’ Market is the place for locally sourced raw foods, wines, and outposts of some of the area’s legendary prepared-foods providers, such as Model Bakery, Fatted Calf charcuterie, and Taylor’s Refresher’s storied grilled burgers.

• Napa State Parks
In the green season, Bothe–Napa Valley and Robert Louis Stevenson state parks, on opposite sides of Calistoga, boast great trails and vistas of rolling countryside all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The latter’s five-mile hike up Mt. St. Helena affords views for 200 miles on clear days.