Dining Room Furniture

Archive for July, 2009

California draws millions of tourists from all over the world, every year. One of the main attractions in California is the Napa Valley. It is recorded that the valley draws more than five million tourists each year. A visit to the Napa Valley is full of some of the most amazingly aromatic, visual, culinary delights. Wine connoisseurs and chefs from all over the world undeniably learn and enjoy from a visit to this beautiful Valley. The main attractions are the world-renowned wine tours. They offer a peek into the wine making process and an opportunity to taste some fine wines. The Napa Valley wine tours are more than just a holiday experience.

Although Napa Valley is set amidst an abundance of panoramic beauty, it is the vineyards and the wine industry and production of fine wines that make this beautiful place one of the hottest tourist destinations in the world. Napa Valley wine tours flaunt some of the finest wineries in the world. Visitors are taken via a 30-mile valley that starts at Napa, passes through Yountville, Oakville, St Helena and finally Calistoga.

The tours begin in the mornings and end before 6, in the evening. Most tours feature visits to three or four wineries. It hardly matters if you are a connoisseur or a novice; you get to experience the process of wine making from the beginning to the final bottling and indulge in the luxury of tasting fine wines. The tours offer the opportunity to avail of your favorite wines at discounted rates. For the wine aficionados, wine touring is extremely fascinating, with the winemaking procedure and sessions with the wine maker himself. For the learners, the wine tasting experience can be fun. The tours also help to enroll with local cooking classes, headed by some world famous chef, enjoy luncheon with the winemaker, attend seminars related to winemaking and even indulge in special bicycle rides, hot air balloon travel and go river rafting. What is more, wine tours provide you with the opportunity to soak in all the heavenly panoramic sights of beautiful Napa Valley.

Most wine tour companies start from San Francisco and provide tourists with different services. Some companies have special packages and tie ups with some of the oldest private wineries, while others take their guests on a number of different tours. Some companies follow a preset itinerary and program, while others modify the tours to meet the requests, needs and budget of their guests. Depending on your budget, you can travel in sedans, tourist buses, trains or even a limousine, making your tour a luxurious experience. The fees range from $60 and can go up to $200, depending on the package. While touring, you can either carry your own packed lunch or you could opt to dine at any of the popular local restaurants.

Tourists can learn a great deal about Chardonnays, the wines that have aged for about twenty years and more. If the tourist group prefers red wine, they get to visit a vineyard that is famous for producing red wines. The owner of each winery gives the tourist group a tour of the property. Once the tour is over, the company drops each tourist off, at their respective lodging.

The Napa Valley tourist train runs on a daily basis and halts at two very popular wineries. The journey lasts for about three hours and showcases the pride and delight of Napa Valley.

By: Kris Koonar

We’ve often described the Northern California Wine Country as a ‘Disneyland for Adults’, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave the children behind. For many people, visiting wineries is only one day of their trip to San Francisco. After all, with all of the attractions it has to offer, the Bay Area is a great destination for the whole family. A daytrip to the scenic counties of Sonoma and Napa provides an opportunity to enjoy a relaxed pace with stunning views, wonderful tours and interesting wineries. The wineries and their gift shops are admittedly more interesting to the adults than the kids, but they will still enjoy the trip because it is, after all, farm country, and what kid doesn’t enjoy that? Sonoma especially takes great pride in their agricultural diversity, so as you travel around you’re going to see a wide variety of plantings, orchards and livestock in between the vineyards. 

 

We’re seeing increasing numbers of children in Wine Country. While it is still a relatively small number, parents are finding ways to make it work. The secret to having a great time together in Sonoma and Napa is to realize that while many wineries are not suitable or enjoyable for children, there are many others that are. Sonoma and Napa have over seven hundred wineries, of which about half can be visited easily so there are plenty to choose from, as well as many other family attractions. 

 

One of the most kid friendly and adult enjoyable destinations is the Plaza in downtown Sonoma.  If you’re coming from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge you’ll be at this historic and charming place in a little over half an hour. This is the ‘Philadelphia of California’, because it is the place where the Republic of California declared its independence from Mexico.

 It is helpful to know that there are the counties of Sonoma and Napa, and the cities of Sonoma and Napa.

Even though Sonoma is a small city of about nine thousand people, it is big on history. It is the only city in California that enjoys all three of these distinctions; it was an official Pueblo, or city under Mexico, it was a Franciscan Mission (the twenty-first and final), and it was the military headquarters for the entire West Coast under both Mexico and the United States. Around the Plaza, which is the largest in California, there are numerous historic sites as well as nice restaurants and shops. In the Plaza there are great picnic tables near the playgrounds and the newly restored duck pond.

The tourist bureau sits on the Plaza in an old Carnegie Library building and it can provide additional information for a great day with kids. A unique attraction called Train Town is just two minutes back down Broadway, the road that led you to the Plaza. This is a small old-style amusement park suitable for young children up to approximately age ten. There is a small train to ride and a traditional merry-go-round and it harkens back to a time before special effects were digital. There is even a petting zoo. 

 

Around the Plaza are several winery tasting rooms where you can taste some excellent wines without spending all day getting there. Then you can nip back to the playground before moving on to the next winery. Five minutes from the Plaza is one of the Sonoma originals, the Sebastiani Family Winery, with their great old barrel room, one of Sonoma’s best gift shops and some very nice wines for you to sample. They also offer a trolley tour of Sonoma that explains about its wonderful history. Just to the south of town is the Larson Family Winery, on the old Sonoma Rodeo site. This was where the champion race horse Seabiscuit stabled overnight when he was racing on the West Coast. It has a farm-like setting with llamas and sheep. Horse rides through the vineyards can arranged in advance, bocce courts and picnic areas round out the experience.  

 

From the Plaza you can head north on Route 12 up the Valley of the Moon, a scenic route. Voted Sonoma’s best tour, the Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen offers a wonderful mix of agriculture, education and fine wine. Their vineyards are tucked in a pretty little valley on Sonoma Mountain just down the road from Jack London’s old ranch, now a park.

 Their tour, aboard a tram attached to the back of a tractor, winds its way up into the vineyards where they explain the biodynamic approach to agriculture, a remarkable system that is increasingly popular with many high-end wineries. Next you visit the barrel caves and finish up in the winery for a tasting. Admittedly wineries are about adult enjoyment, but there are often children on the Benziger tour and they always seem to enjoy themselves.  

 

Please don’t make the mistake of bringing children to trendy wineries where they have nothing of interest for kids. They will spend the hour while you are tasting wine bored with nothing to do. The wineries that are kid friendly have made a big effort to be so. At both the Sonoma Plaza and Benziger you’ll find good picnic tables, so pick up some sandwiches either at the Plaza or at the Glen Ellen Market. 

 

Many of the wineries in the Valley of the Moon are kid friendly as long as you have an adult willing to keep an eye on them. The grounds are gracious and park-like allowing for a little outdoor enjoyment in beautiful surroundings.  Some of those that come to mind are B.R. Cohn, Imagery, Landmark and St. Francis. Chateau St. Jean and Ledson Winery both have deli markets and picnic tables on site. They are all within five miles of each other along Route 12, the main road in the Valley. Hint: Bring a soccer ball or a Frisbee. There are some great lawns in the Valley of the Moon. 

 

Visiting Napa with Children



 

Napa is a great place to visit because everything is close together. The whole valley is only thirty miles long by five miles wide, and while there are other wineries tucked up in the hills, the variety of wineries that are easy to reach is wonderful. However, it is not as agriculturally varied as Sonoma. Napa is another half hour farther from the Golden Gate Bridge, but the ride brings you through the beautiful Carneros district with its vineyard covered rolling hills that have a distinctly Tuscan feeling. Napa is closer to San Francisco via the less scenic Bay Bridge. 

 

Napa has a bit more of a city style than its country cousin Sonoma, but there are several places that children will especially enjoy. Everyone enjoys spectacular architecture and great views, something at which Napa excels. A classic example of this is the Artesa Winery, with its hilltop site overlooking Carneros and the Bay. Artesa is close to San Francisco and despite not being built with children in mind, the feeling is relaxed enough and the variety of places to explore extensive enough that everyone in the family will be charmed. They even have an elevator for those with strollers. 

 

Just to the north in Yountville is Domaine Chandon, one of Napa’s original makers of sparkling wine. This is a favorite for groups and people with children because the grounds are gracious and accommodating, with lawns, ponds and wildlife. Up on the patio, they offer snacks along with their elegant sparkling wines and the tables make it easier to keep everyone together. The springtime tadpole explosion in the ponds will keep any child entertained. 

 

One of the most enjoyable family wineries is Francis Ford Coppola’s Rubicon in Rutherford, about half way up the Napa Valley on Highway 29 (St. Helena Highway). He took the historic Neibaum/Inglenook building and surrounded it with gardens that have all of the graciousness of a southern Italian villa. The exhibits and old barrel rooms upstairs are enough to entertain most children. During the summer they provide model sailboats to send gliding on the fountain pool in front of the building. There is a small café, with outdoor seating, a great gift shop and of course some wonderful wines. 

 

Just to the north is the V. Sattui Winery which in this context is most valuable for their great deli offerings and large picnic area. Napa does not have a lot of picnic areas. On a Saturday in season it can get busy, but finding food, wine and picnic tables all together certainly makes the logistics of blending wineries with children much easier. The wineries have dramatically more traffic on Saturdays than Sundays. 

 

The Wilds of Calistoga

 

For the San Francisco-based traveler, unfortunately, two of the most interesting wineries for children are all the way at the northern part of the valley, just south of the ‘old west’ style town of Calistoga, which is a great, kid-friendly place to visit onto itself. These two wineries are not suitable for infants in strollers, but for children eight years and older they are a fun experience. First is Sterling Vineyards, famous for its aerial tramway that carries visitors to its hilltop winery. Many years ago it was the first large winery to charge for their tastings. The price includes the tram ride. Between the tram, the gift shop and the tasting you need to allow an hour and a half to enjoy the place. Get there early to avoid the lines. 

 

Just across Highway 29 is one of the newest, large wineries in Napa, although it was built to look old. The Castello di Amorosa is built like an authentic castle, from real stone and hand wrought iron. The vision, the forty million dollars and thirteen years it took to build produced a remarkable place. Children are restricted to the early morning tours so you should check their website for the schedule. The tour with tasting takes about two hours. The admission for Rubicon, Sterling and Castello di Amorosa all range between $20 and $25, although they offer discounts for children and young adults. 

 

Napa gets hot in the summer, but very dry, so there are very few flying bugs. During the Winter it gets rainy, but not very cold. Both Spring and Fall are gorgeous, and harvest time, from late August through mid-November, is a very busy, exciting time in Wine Country. 

 

Small, private wineries are often at people’s homes, so for the collector, traveling with children, you should ask your potential hosts if children are welcomed. If you want to get to the smaller wineries with children, consider hiring a guide with a car or SUV (avoid limos due to the need to sit sideways or backwards which increases the possibility of carsickness). While there are limo services in San Francisco, many of the experts live in Wine Country but they pick up clients in the city. Hiring a driver greatly reduces the stress and increases the enjoyment. Explain that you have children and ask them for a guide that is comfortable with that. Some guides are parents and actually like children. For them it’s something different and in fact we remember every tour we’ve ever done with kids. Touring with children is educational and a lot of fun, as long as you go to wineries that they’ll find interesting too. So enjoy your day with the kids in Wine Country. 

By: Ralph and Lahni DeAmicis

The residents of Napa County enjoy both a refined and relaxed lifestyle in one of the most beautiful valleys in California. The towns are small, and residential homes are mixed in with larger properties like farms and vineyards. Homes are generally built to be environmentally friendly and all locals support conservation and recycling efforts. Most people shop in the downtown areas where they get most of what they need at local groceries, specialty stores, and shops. The calendar of events is full throughout the year and includes festivals, fundraisers, and concerts. Families and many single professionals earn a higher income than the national average. There is also a population of retirees as well as seasonal residents.

The exclusive qualities of the Napa Valley allow for the lifestyle in Napa County to be above average. Leisure activities are abundant and enriching. Festivals are frequent, well-attended, and covered by international press. This includes prestigious events like the annual Napa Sonoma Wine Country Film Festival, Annual Friends of the Napa River Festival, Napa Valley Mustard Festival, and the Sonoma County Tomato Festival. The fully restored Lincoln Theater brings internationally acclaimed entertainment to the valley and the historic Napa Valley Opera House presents a full season of musical theater. There are many local art and natural history museums as well as museums that focus on the wineries and agriculture of the area. Because of this, local residents enjoy a rural, yet sophisticated lifestyle.

The cuisine is healthy and much of the food is locally grown. Locally grown foods include fruit, vegetables, olives, honey, mustard, meats, and dairy. Freshly caught seafood is brought in every week from San Fransisco. Of course, the most well-known products of the Napa Valley are the wines, which flow freely at over one hundred and thirty local restaurants. There are also farmer’s markets where tourists and residents alike can buy seasonal produce.

Outdoor activities are abundant and include championship golfing, lake fishing, ballooning, outdoor paintball, hiking, horseback riding and boating. There is even a flying school for individuals who wish to obtain a pilot license for single and multi-engine airplanes. The ground school combines classroom instruction along with computer simulated flying to prepare students for flights at the local Napa Airport.

Shopping is abundant. Of course, there is nearby San Francisco, but Napa County boasts its own unique and high-end shopping outlets. There are many independent bookstores, home design centers, art galleries and clothing boutiques that offer one of a kind merchandise. Along with locally owned restaurants, most of these stores are located on the main streets of walkable downtown areas to offer a completely relaxing shopping experience.

Although tourism is a mainstay in Napa Valley, the residential properties are sectioned off in such a way as to be accessible, yet still allow for privacy. Residents are sophisticated, well-heeled, generally environmentally aware, and appreciative of what life has to offer. Napa County has been home to quite a few notable people, including famous authors, entertainers, and historical figures. Overall, the lifestyle of Napa County is relaxed, healthy, and slow paced.

By: Kadence Buchanan