Visit Napa Valley, California: Where to visit, eat, drink in one of America’s great food and wine regions

Our first taste of Napa isn’t wine. It’s honey.

Thirty-three jars line the counter at The Hive in Woodland, each harvested from a different corner of California. Tiny wooden paddles replace crystal stems as guests compare each one with surprising seriousness. Orange blossom is light and fragrant. Blackberry carries an almost caramel richness. Meadowfoam is so unexpectedly creamy someone suggests toasted marshmallow. Around the room, attention shifts from bees and blossoms to soil, seasons and the subtle ways place shapes what we eat and drink.

Nobody comes to Northern California expecting honey to be the first stop.

For most travellers, the journey begins with grapes in Napa Valley. Ever since the 1976 Judgment of Paris blind tasting announced Californian wine to the world, the region has become synonymous with cabernet sauvignon, landmark estates and some of America’s finest restaurants.

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But Highway 128 tells a different story.

About an hour west of Sacramento, Winters sits on the eastern edge of California’s wine country — a place where independent businesses still define the community and locals browse The Collective for homewares and gifts by regional makers. Saturday mornings belong to the farmers market and L’Apero les Trois transforms fruit into elegant French-style aperitifs.

Beyond the main street, Park Winters occupies a beautifully restored Victorian homestead surrounded by flower gardens, productive farmland and ancient trees, while woodfired pizzas arrive topped with herbs and vegetables harvested only moments earlier.

The same spirit of experimentation extends to nearby UC Davis, where much of California’s modern wine industry has its roots. Home to one of America’s foremost viticulture and oenology programs, the university has educated generations of winemakers.

Great Bear Vineyards is a natural extension of that legacy. Family-owned by Jenny and Marcus Meadows-Smith, the estate occupies a restored 1860 homestead where tastings unfold beneath the soaring beams of the original barn or among lavender, olive trees and vines stretching towards the horizon.

Jenny studied winemaking at UC Davis, while viticulture professors helped design the layout of grape vines, reflecting the close relationship between research and farming that underpins the region’s success. Here, small batches, wild yeasts and careful farming barely enter the conversation. Instead, discussion turns to vineyard soils, the cooling Delta breeze and the unpredictability of each vintage.

Napa Valley takes its food seriously, but not always itself. Mustards Grill has spent more than 40 years feeding everyone from vineyard workers and winemakers to visiting chefs and milestone celebrators, yet happily describes itself as “a fancy rib joint with way too many wines”. Diners might begin with grilled California asparagus topped with herb creme fraiche, crispy capers and pine nuts before moving on to sticky baby back ribs served with warm honey cornbread. Those struggling to choose a bottle can simply order a “Flight of Fancy”. Restaurants like Mustards helped define the modern Napa, though the foundations were laid much earlier.

When Jacob and Frederick Beringer planted their first vines in 1876, few could have imagined Napa Valley becoming one of America’s defining wine regions. The estate’s 17-room Rhine House, completed in 1884, still speaks to that ambition. Hand-carved timber, 41 stained-glass windows and limestone quarried nearby lead into the cool wine tunnels beneath the property, where a walking tour traces almost 150 years of winemaking history.

Nearly a century later, Silver Oak wrote the next chapter. Rather than producing every style of wine, founders Ray Duncan and Justin Meyer focused almost exclusively on cabernet sauvignon, spending five decades refining it. Their other rebellion was ageing every vintage in American oak at a time French oak had become the benchmark for premium wine. The commitment ran so deep the estate eventually bought its own cooperage in Missouri, giving it complete control over every barrel.

After fire destroyed the original property in 2006, Silver Oak rebuilt with sustainability at its core, creating the world’s first commercial production winery to achieve LEED Platinum certification. Re-creating what had been lost would have been the easy option. Instead, the team asked a different question: what should a great winery look like in the future?

Elsewhere in the valley, theatricality replaces restraint.

Castello di Amorosa shouldn’t work, but it does. The winery, anchored by a full-scale Tuscan castle complete with moat, drawbridge, towers, armoury and even a torture chamber, it has no obvious place in rural California. It’s gloriously over the top — and entirely unapologetic about it.

Perched above Calistoga, Sterling Vineyards takes a different approach. Visitors board an aerial gondola that glides above the vines before arriving at the hilltop estate. For a few minutes, conversation stops. The view does all the work. The town below has been drawing visitors long before cabernet sauvignon became Napa Valley’s calling card. People first came here for the geothermal springs and mineral-rich mud bubbling beneath the earth.

Dr Wilkinson’s has welcomed them since 1952 and still embraces that playful heritage. Candy-coloured doors line the motel-style rooms, vintage signage nods to the golden age of Californian road trips and guests disappear beneath thick mineral mud before heading into town for dinner. A few minutes away, Four Seasons Napa Valley could easily have been another polished resort overlooking vineyards. Instead, it sits within one.

Breakfast rolls into a tasting at Elusa before dinner at Truss, where Californian-farmed Nicolai caviar might be followed by tuna crudo with preserved lemon, tomato marmalade and kalamata olive.

The region’s Alexander Valley reveals itself at cycling pace. Quiet backroads weave between vineyards, orchards and working farms, where an e-bike slows the journey just enough to notice tractors edging between rows of vines and the names on cellar doors changing from global brands to family surnames.

Some of those families have shaped this valley for generations. Robert Young planted vines here in the 1850s, and the estate later helped establish Californian chardonnay through the influential Robert Young Clone. Neighbouring Zialena remains in the hands of the sixth generation of the Zeller family, whose small-batch wines are still made from fruit grown on the family’s original land.

At Geyserville Inn, Geyserville, the soundtrack is birdsong and tractors, not tour buses. Low cloud hangs over the vineyards well into the morning, while Mount St Helena rises beyond the valley. From the inn’s balconies, rows of grapes stretch almost to Douglas Keane’s Michelin-starred Cyrus restaurant. Champagne and canapes in the Bubbles Lounge here set the tone before guests are guided through the kitchen and a succession of intimate spaces on their way to the dining room. Butter-poached lobster with Ossetra caviar, corn and finger lime is followed by Sonoma lamb glazed with tamarind and Thai basil, before the evening ends in a hidden Chocolate Room with house-made sweets.

Catelli’s couldn’t be more different. Chef Domenica Catelli carries forward five generations of Italian tradition, serving paper-thin ravioli filled with Bellwether Farms ricotta, Laura Chenel goat’s cheese and parmesan alongside her grandmother Virginia’s minestrone, prepared from her original recipe. Neighbouring tables greet one another by name.

Southern Italian flavours continue at Rustic, the signature restaurant at Francis Ford Coppola Winery, where family recipes sit alongside estate-grown wines. Beyond the dining room, the estate reveals another side. Academy awards and original movie memorabilia fill the galleries, while towels drape over sun lounges beside a swimming pool where children spend the afternoon between swims.

Somewhere west of Geyserville, the vineyards begin to thin. Apple orchards gradually replace cabernet vines as Highway 128 follows the Navarro River towards Anderson Valley. Sheep graze between the vines at Pennyroyal Farm, where handcrafted cheeses share the table with estate wines, while six generations of the Gowan family continue pressing heirloom apples into crisp organic cider. At nearby Roederer Estate, founded by the famed French champagne house, the valley’s maritime climate produces elegant traditional-method sparkling, another expression of a landscape that’s quietly changing with every kilometre.

Before long, the road disappears beneath towering coast redwoods. The trunks rise so high they dissolve into the canopy, filtering the afternoon light into shifting bands across the forest floor.

Driving through them is impressive. Riding the Skunk Train is something else entirely.

For more than 140 years, the railway has threaded through these forests, first carrying giant timber logs and now travellers seeking a very different adventure. The train rolls into Glen Blair Junction, where a woodland bar emerges beneath the trees. Timber chairs gather around open fire pits, local wines, craft beers and cocktails are served beneath the canopy, while live music drifts through the clearing. When the whistle sounds, conversations pause, glasses are gathered and everyone climbs back aboard, disappearing into the forest once more.

The trees eventually give way to the Pacific. Mendocino’s weatherboard cottages perch above rugged headlands, 19th-century buildings house galleries, cafes and independent bookshops, while walking trails trace the cliffs where waves surge against the rocks below. Hydrangeas spill over picket fences, salt hangs in the air and every street seems to lead back towards the sea.

Stanford Inn belongs naturally to this stretch of coastline. Exposed timber beams, an enormous stone fireplace and shelves lined with well-thumbed books create the feel of a long-established coastal lodge. At Ravens Restaurant, much of the produce comes from the property’s organic gardens, while canoes rest beside the Big River, waiting for the morning tide. Dawn arrives beneath a veil of coastal mist before the estuary slowly comes back into focus.

Where Big River meets the Pacific, Noyo Harbour still earns its living from the sea. Crab pots stack high on the docks as commercial fishers unload sea urchins, salmon and Dungeness crab, while sea lions patrol beneath the wharves hoping for an easy meal. Lunch at Noyo Fish Company is whatever the boats have landed that morning — oysters shucked to order, sweet shrimp tacos, clam chowder — eaten within sight of the harbour that supplied it.

Every stop along Highway 128 begins with someone paying close attention: a fisher reading the tides, a winemaker watching the vines, a cidermaker following the harvest, a cheesemaker tasting the morning’s milk, a beekeeper tracking the blossoms. That’s what lingers long after Highway 128 ends.