Yountville, Deep In the Heart of Napa Valley's Essence

[Steve Mirsky]

Yountville, California embodies many quintessential visions you undoubtedly have when planning a Napa Valley excursion. It all started in 1836, when George Calvert Yount founded the town planting Napa Valley's first official vineyard. Today, vines stretch from the Mayacamas mountains to the Napa River. Yountville's compact layout, clustered around Washington Street, is also perfect for biking not only on the existing street grid but along the ever expanding Napa Valley Vine Trail which when completed will extend 47 miles from Vallejo to Calistoga.

Yountville has the highest concentration of Michelin-rated dining in the valley, and a wide array of luxury hotels to stay in. When you need a break from wine tastings, be sure to drink in some culture at the Napa Valley Museum and explore Yountville's sculpture-filled Art Walk.

Where to Stay

Despite growing exponentially within the past 10 years, Yountville's small scale historic architectural elements remain influencing newer development. An impressive example is 23-acre Vintage Estate featuring V Marketplace, formerly a circa 1874 winery and now a lifestyle center listed on the National Register of Historic Places offering boutique shopping and dining. Chef Michael Chiarello’s flagship NapaStyle and signature Bottega are two stellar examples. Walking the richly landscaped grounds with a continuously flowing, stone-lined stream and fountains at the center evokes the ambiance of a French country chateau.

Two on-site luxury hotels, Vintage Inn and Villagio Inn & Spa, are situated on the estate as well. AAA-Four-Diamond Vintage Inn's 80 newly remodeled guestrooms and cozy, cottage-style villas with gabled roofs and plantation-style shutters invite guests to linger and luxuriate. Each room has either a private balcony or garden patio furnished with oversize Brown Jordan wicker furniture. Interiors are graced with acacia hardwood flooring accented by hand-woven Indian wool area rugs, original photography shot by local Napa Valley artists, and glass-front mini-refrigerators providing refined storage for the edible treats you're sure to accumulate during your stay.

Cozying in never felt so good with stone-framed wood burning fire places, vaulted
ceilings, and marble tiled bathrooms perfect for sinking into an oversize sunken whirlpool bathtub or soaking under a dual headed shower outfitted with carrara marble mosaic tiled floors. Complimentary in-room wine, nightly turn-down service featuring craft chocolates, and a full Champagne breakfast buffet await guests each morning. Wake up a little early before the sun rises and take a Napa Aloft hot-air balloon ride. Tours depart daily, weather permitting, from the V Market parking lot providing spectacular sunrise vineyard views. If you opt in, you'll still get your Champagne breakfast post-ride at Pacific Blues Cafe.

Spa Villagio, a 13,000-square-foot residential-style sanctuary adjacent to Vintage Inn offers sixteen state-of-the-art treatment rooms. As part of their "Signature Suite Experiences," you can revel in blissful relaxation a bit longer in one of their five private spa suites outfitted with fireplaces, jet-equipped infinity soaking tubs, steam showers, wet bars, private patios, and flat-screen TVs with Bose surround-sound systems.

Dining

Distinctive dining in Yountville dates back to 1977, when Philippe Jeanty opened Domaine Chandon's restaurant. Now still in the kitchen but at his own Bistro Jeanty down the street, top quality dining has mushroomed into Michelin-star territory with The French Laundry and Bouchon topping the list while Michelin-rated eateries like Lucy Restaurant and Bar, and Redd Wood create year round farm-to-fork dishes. French Laundry's three-acre vegetable garden, right across the street from its namesake restaurant, is open to the public, and a highly visible example of where all this fresh produce is sourced from.

Redd Wood

Redd Wood, a more casual sister restaurant of Richard Reddington's Redd, is an osteria with ultramodern bar and clusters of tables benefiting from bright outside views thanks to knee-to-ceiling plate glass windows. To the left of the door as you enter, you'll see various cuts of meats aging in a glass-door, walk-in refrigerator. A lit copper buoy serves as the central lighting feature while the private dining room is flanked with magazine wall-art.

A sure bet among other treats on the menu here is building your own wood fired pizza masterpiece. It all starts with a finely blistered crust with 

satisfying chew and subtle smokiness topped with Neapolitan-style sauce (whole peeled tomatoes, salt, olive oil) fresh mozzarella, and basil. Next, pick from toppings including their in-house aged pancetta, goat cheese, smoked mozzarella, ham and bacon, Calabrian chili, and just picked arugula.

Dining outside on the terrace is a highly contested seating option where at night you can truly look up into the sky and identify the constellations along with a glass of wine from an impeccably curated 200-bottle list. Although heavily focusing on local varietals, roughly 50 percent lean Italian, including 21 by-the-glass offerings. Tacos Garcia, a city-licensed taco truck sets up in a parking lot across the street alongside a dive bar lending an egalitarian ambiance to Yountsville's dining scene on this stretch of Washington Street.

Lucy Restaurant & Bar

Ensconced within ultra posh LEED-Platinum-certified Hotel Bardessono, Lucy Restaurant & Bar cultivates an equally inspired menu based on what's available from their kitchen-side garden. Executive Chef Victor Scargle regularly leads garden tours identifying and harvesting herbs and produce like Persian limes, eight mint varieties, as well as salad greens and other vegetables.


And if they don't have it, local farms make up the difference in dishes like Schmitz Ranch Pork Chop and Liberty Farm Duck Breast. While Lucy does showcase Napa wines, its list specifically focuses on small vintners from around the world committed to organic and biodynamic practices.

Can't-Miss Wineries

Jessup Cellars

A standout among Yountville wineries, Jessup Cellars turns out some stellar small-production vintages expertly crafted by winemaker Rob Lloyd. You can explore their bold Cabernets, smooth Bordeaux–style blends, crisp whites, and rich Ports in their Tuscan-style tasting room across the street from Redd Wood. Like many Napa tasting rooms, art takes just as much of the stage as the wines. At Jessup, this is taken a step further with their artist-in-residence program allowing artists to spend time in Yountville performing in their gallery space. Regularly scheduled events include an Art House Short Film Series featuring four award-winning shorts paired with a Jessup Cellars wine and chef Mike C’s wok-popped, flavor-infused popcorn.

Rob Lloyd's simple yet crucial wine making cornerstone is sourcing particular grapes from where they grow best in the Valley. This requires an intimate knowledge of micro climates that can only come from years of walking vineyards during all seasons. Pinots, Chardonnay and Merlot grapes from Carneros Bay are a case in point. These cooler climate grapes benefit from ocean breezes which naturally slow maturation allowing proper ripening before they sugar up. “A longer hang time amply softens the skins before the Brix level gets too high,” says Lloyd. Conversely, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Zinfandel and Petit Verdot are sourced from “up-valley” regions where it's hotter and drier. The best part is that Jessup's wines are richly concentrated and accessible when young yet poised for the benefits of cellaring.

HALL Wines

It will be extra-difficult to coax yourself farther afield after experiencing the benefits of having everything at your fingertips in Yountville, but it's well worth it to make the trek one town up Route 29 to St. Helena's HALL Wines. Run by Kathryn Walt Hall and her husband Craig, HALL's distinctive Cabernets and Sauvignon Blancs are among the big tasting attractions here, but as impressive as these wines may be, the tasting room is a work of art in and of itself. Entering is like being admitted to a contemporary art museum. Large outdoor sculptures like a 35-foot stainless steel Bunny Foo Foo and a larger-than-life-size head constructed of marble and lead tie in the surrounding vineyards, while glass paneled walls in the tasting room overlook it all, presenting the wines in a naturally lit gallery. Even the bottle labels are painted by local artists depicting distinctive characteristics of each varietal.

Roughly half the grapes HALL uses come from its estate vineyards; the other half are sourced from over 130 certified organic Napa vineyards. Rooted in a potent combination of hands-on and high-tech, winemaking here begins with handpicked grapes that are then sorted with a digital optical sorting machine outfitted with laser powered sensors to identify just the right grapes for predetermined flavor profiles.

Photos: yountville.com, French Laundry Culinary Garden,Vintage Inn, HALL Wines, Jessup Cellars, and Steve Mirsky. Coverage made possible by participating in a sponsored visit.