Napa & Sonoma Wine Country
California, USA · Napa Valley · Carneros · Sonoma
2 places pinned — click any one for its story.
The place
An hour north of San Ramon the ground changes. Napa Valley is a thirty-mile trench between two mountain ranges — the Mayacamas on the west, the Vaca on the east — with the valley floor's benches and gravel bars laid down by streams coming off both sides. That patchwork is why a single valley holds sixteen sub-appellations, and why Oakville and Rutherford, right in the middle, grow the Cabernet Sauvignon that put California on the map at the 1976 Judgment of Paris.
South of the valley, where Napa and Sonoma both run down to San Pablo Bay, is Los Carneros — flatter, windier, and several degrees cooler, with fog that sits until mid-morning. Cabernet will not ripen properly here, which turned out to be the point: the cool shelf grows the high-acid Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that sparkling wine needs, so Champagne Taittinger and Freixenet of Catalonia both planted their California houses in Carneros in the 1980s rather than up-valley.
This is the log of the houses we keep going back to — the Cabernet estates on the valley floor, and the sparkling châteaux down in the fog line.
Places I visited
History & facts for each spot — with a “then & now” archival photo where one exists. Every one has its own page; open it for the full write-up and all the photos.
The narrow bench in the middle of Napa Valley — gravelly, well-drained soil between the Mayacamas and the Vaca range that produces the most sought-after Cabernet Sauvignon in California.
Full history & photos →The cool, wind-raked shelf where Napa and Sonoma meet San Pablo Bay. Fog and bay breeze keep the ripening slow, which is why California's serious sparkling houses all planted here rather than up-valley.
Full history & photos →
Wineries
Silver Oak
OakvilleKnown for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon — the flagship, American-oak aged, released with bottle age
tasting notes →
Trinitas Cellars
Napa ValleyKnown for Old-vine Zinfandel — the wine that made the name, from century-old blocks
tasting notes →
Domaine Carneros
Los Carneros, NapaKnown for Brut Cuvée — the estate's classic méthode traditionnelle sparkling
tasting notes →
Gloria Ferrer
Los Carneros, SonomaKnown for Sonoma Brut — the everyday estate sparkling
tasting notes →
Cline Cellars
Los Carneros, SonomaKnown for Ancient Vines Mourvèdre and Zinfandel — from the 1880s Oakley plantings
tasting notes →
Gundlach Bundschu
Sonoma ValleyKnown for Gewürztraminer — the house signature, planted at Rhinefarm since the 1970s and now Regenerative Organic Certified
tasting notes →