Where to go Napa Valley

So as a former (and hope to be future) Bay Area resident, I thought it would be worthwhile to write about my wife and my favorite places to go in wine country. First let me say that while I like Sonoma and have stayed over there in the past, for non-residents, you have to home base it in the Napa Valley. You can base there and do day trips over to Sonoma, but really, if you are not a frequent visitor to No. Ca. wine country, the world has to start in Napa.

So a trip to Napa for me begins with my hotel destination. We like Vintage Inn and its sister hotel Villagio in Yountville. Pricey like everything in Napa, but look for a deal and they give you a nice breakfast spread every morning that makes lunch optional. Other nice places to stay include Rancho Caymus in Rutherford and Mount View Hotel in Calistoga. Rancho is nice but we ate a La Toque, their "award winning restaurant" which is actually not run by the Rancho people, I think, and the people at La Toque were jerkoffs. My money is as good as anyone else's so I say take their snooty noses and stuff them up their own rear ends and sniff real hard. So the hotel...good, the restaurant...sucks. Mount View is old but has been recently renovated so is worth a try. For my money, Yountville and Calistoga are the two most interesting towns in the valley.

Okay, so one of the local secrets, sorry Rutherford, is the Rutherford Grill located right next to BV Winery and in front of Rancho Caymus. NO CORKAGE FEE, A GOOD WINE LIST AND GOOD HEARTY STEAKS, SEAFOOD AND OTHER HEARTY FARE. You can buy a bottle of aged reserve at one of the wineries on your trip and pop it there for free. What a deal. But I do not think they take reservations, like many places in the valley, so go early or be prepared to wait.

So let's back up and go back to Yountville. The general progression of your days will follow the geography of the valley. Yountville is the first city basically in wine county, in my mind. With the imposing mission style California Veteran's Home and Hospital on the west side of Hwy. 29 and the town on the right, it probably just edges Calistoga for interesting places to visit and good eats. And of course it is home to the most famous restaurant in the United States, The French Laundry. I have eaten at the Laundry twice and found it overpriced and pretentious. But the food is good with many small courses and the wine list speaks for itself. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law love the place and they probably are only slightly below me when it comes to eating and drinking so I trust their opinion. So it is one of those gotta-do-it-once places but, like Charley Trotters here in Chicago, if you ain't a billionaire, consider it a once in a lifetime experience.

Our favorite thing to do in Yountville is visit the art galleries. Nancie at Images is about as good a host as you can ever find. We have purchased a good deal of artwork from her through the years and while I know her job is to make you feel comfortable and sell you shit, she does seem sincere and I like her. Most importantly, she will not pressure you and you can browse away without being hassled, which I always like. Check out the glass shop next to Images North for some pricey but really interesting glass Objet d'Arte.

You could eat all week at the restaurants in and around Yountville and not be disappointed, so give them all a try if you like. One experience is Bistro Jeanty, which is a real French bistro located in the heart of Napa Valley. Like organ meats, they got 'em. How about a full plate of raw beef like I had in Paris so many years ago. I saw a kid trying to impress his girl by eating a whole plate of the stuff and I bet he was barfing all night. Worth eating there just for the show. If you cannot get into the Laundry, try his more casual bistro Bouchon, which I actually prefer because they are not trying to charge you $50 for corkage if you bring your own wine and they are not nearly as snooty as the Laundry. I mean when the Laundry is charging $50 for corkage, they are telling you that they expect to make a minimum of that for each bottle of wine you buy from their wine list. That, my friends, is obnoxious and obscene. I have a real hard time paying a $50 upcharge on any wine at a restaurant, I could care less what the restaurant is. So shame on them.

Brix, Domaine Chandon and Hurleys are among the other choices in the area, with Mustards not too far down the road either. Of course there is also the seminal Napa Valley Grille, a place that I remember 20 plus years ago when California Cuisine was little more than a twinkle in Alice Waters eye. I am not sure if this is the same place as I visited so many years ago, but I have heard good things and it is worth a shot.

Okay, so enough eating in Yountville. How about St. Helena, the next major stop north of Rutherford on Hwy. 29? Of course the overhyped and mediocre Travigne is one major stop in town. But I prefer Terra and Martini House. When you start doing American Express commercials like Travigne, you know the quality suffers and the idiots come out just say they went there. Asian inspired Terra (which I heard lost a lot of their wine in a fire or some other disaster) has been a winner for us and they are a favorite of the vegetarian crowd. I visited Martini House several years ago just after it opened. The service was a little spotty and the food was just okay, but we had nice bottle of Italian Merlot, Falesco Montiano and the surroundings were really neat so it is worthy of another try.

Now onto Calistoga. One of the best and most disgusting experiences of my life was taking my first mud bath at Dr. Wilkinson's in Calistoga. My old psycho, pyro friend, Jim Antaki, introduced my wife and I to mud bathing 20 years ago or so. Jim and his wife Jan's anniversary is the same day as ours (or maybe a day or two before or after) and for a couple of years we would go to the valley with them to celebrate. Jim always got a mud bath and massage and he talked us into it. We usually go to Dr. Wilkinson's because they have separate men's and women's sections (rather than couples sections) and you are going there to get loose, not have sex. Plus, they seem to have about the best hygiene of any of the spas in Calistoga. For those of you who do not know, Calistoga is located over an underground natural thermal springs. As I will discuss below, the area was once (and probably still is) volcanically active. The spring is the source of the famous Calistoga Mineral Water and the spas in the area tap into the source for water and heat for their mud baths and saunas.

Mud is a misnomer, it is really peat moss mixed with volcanic ash from the surrounding hills. The peat and ash mix get a little ripe because they only change it once a week or so and since you sit in it and it pulls the sweat out of your body (along with the wine you had last night and other toxins in your system), you are basically sharing sweat with everyone else who used it before you. Now they steam the stuff before you get in, but it still gets a little ripe. There are two really gross things about it you have to get over in order to enjoy the experience. First, when you get in you have to literally force yourself down into the goop. This is pretty gross and if they screw up and do not get the temperature of the mud down before you get in, you can get a real shock to your system. The grossest thing is how the mud clings to every hair on your body. When you exit the tub, you are coated with wet peat moss and ash that you have to spend 20 minutes removing via shower. It is a good reason to get a Brazilian wax (men included) prior to going there. Because believe me, getting this stuff out of your butt crack, pubic hair and scrotum can be hell. I shutter to think what the ladies go through. Believe me when I tell you pieces of peat will show up in unexpected places (behind your ears, various folds of fat) for about 3 days after the bath.

But after a mud bath, whirlpool, sauna blanket wrap and 30 or 60 minute massage, you are absolutely jello. Really, it is a great way to remove some of the stress from your life. I always get impatient, especially during the blanket rap, so you should try to go in with a relaxed mental state to get the full enjoyment.

I have to admit, we have almost never eaten in Calistoga, so I am not sure where to go should you be up there. I believe the Mount View has a good restaurant and there are a few others in town that look good from the outside. Yountville, St. Helena, Rutherford and Napa are better known than Calistoga for their restaurants so I say eat lunch instead of dinner there. There is a "market" across the street from Dr. Wilkinsons, I forget the name, which has awesome selections of cheese, cold cuts, sandwiches, salads and the like. My recommendation, get a fairly early mud bath, get some lunch in Calistoga and spend the rest of the day visiting the shops in town. Or go wine tasting, which I have not even gotten to yet.

So this is the first installment of Joel's Napa Valley Visit. Stay tuned for future installments when I get to the good stuff, the fermented grape juice thing.