INGLENOOK WINERY Head out of town to St. Helena for a tasting at Inglenook to experience how Napa’s present and future are being shaped by its past. The estate winery’s mission of making fine wine to rival France’s best chateaus goes back 140 years to an entrepreneurial Finnish sea captain who founded it after he fell in love with Napa’s grapegrowing ability and its people. Natural disasters, Prohibition and time left it slated for demolition in the mid 1970s, but over 25 years, the Coppolas have gradually restored the property to its original resplendence. Don’t miss the Experience tour, held daily at 11 a.m.
INSIDER
Michael Di Caro finds the Napa spots that are trying to reclaim the California region’s youthful underdog status.
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RING UP NAPA Valley at a dinner party and chances are that your companions will immediately recognize it as one of the world’s most prestigious winemaking areas. The larger region is home to over 500 wineries that make up the Napa Valley Vintners. It also boasts an impressive list of award-winning and Michelin-listed restaurants. But thinking of Napa as one homogenous region is imprecise. It’s made up of half a dozen towns, each with its own characteristic and “terroir” that influence the unique personalities of the wine they make. While the majority of wine drinkers associate Napa with bold and plump cabernet sauvignon, one of the recent developments is the move beyond this widely recognized red grape. Winemakers who have decades of experience during Napa’s formative years have recently opted to shift focus.
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The result is a network of boutique, family-owned wineries sprinkled throughout the region, growing grapes and making wine in tiny lots and often selling it for less than half of many Napa cab sauvs. This diversity has made Napa an exciting place for wine drinkers to visit, offering something for every single palate. The best times to visit Napa are between March and May when spring is in full bloom, or late summer for harvest season. If it’s your first time, downtown Napa is where you want to be these days, a place renowned for its gorgeous vineyards, fine dining restaurants and quaint towns. Until the last handful of years, you’d bypass Napa proper on the way to Rutherford vineyards and towns like Yountville to experience the best of the Valley’s bounty, but thanks to a young entrepreneurial spirit, that’s all changed. f For more great travel content, check out our sister magazine, escapism Toronto. escapism.to
GETTING THERE
The quickest option for getting to Napa Valley is to take a direct flight from Toronto into San Francisco International Airport (approx 5.5 hours). From there, Napa is just over an hour by car. If you prefer to avoid driving, there are many airport shuttles like California Wine Tours and Evan’s Transportation. californiawinetours. com, evanstransportation.com
