Napa: Valley of the Vines

The CIA (Culinary Institue of America) is a must for any gourmand. Stop for the store and for the food, as well as the wonderful architecture. If your home kitchen isn't well-equipped, it will be by the time you leave the campus store.

Quick Tips:

Weekends are packed. Try a weekday if possible. Autumn is also a great time to hit the wineries, less crowded and some beautiful scenery as the leaves turn deep reds and purples on the vines. Designate a driver or ride the wine train. The samples are small, but they add up. Eat a little before you go. Some concession does seem to be made to the fact that a lot of people will be driving while mildly buzzed, but you don't want to be in an accident or get a DUI while on vacation.

Best Way To Get Around:

Drive or take the wine train (www.winetrain.com). To avoid the the traffic jams, consider weekdays. Also, you may want to take the Silverado Trail, which parallels Highway 29, rather than the highway itself, in order to reach certain wineries. However, you do miss a lot of great sights this way.

For a self-guided tour and some excellent vistas, visit Sterling Vineyards, just a few miles north of St. Helena. A brief tram ride will take you to the stark white edifice, modeled after the architecture of the Greek island of Mykonos.

The self-guided tour consists of placards explaining the history of winemaking as well as the process as it exists today. Walk slowly and inhale the winemaking process as it wafts up from vats and barrels. Toward the end of the tour you'll have the opportunity to wander outside and soak up some great views of the Valley.

As intoxicating as the view is at Sterling Vineyards, don't forget to visit the tasting room. Here you'll be given samples of several wines, both whites and reds, to sip at your leisure. These are some great wines, and the samples are generous, so make sure you have a designated driver. As with many of the wineries, Sterling will ship their wines, so don't go too nuts on the samples. However, being a wine drinker I can tell you that not one of the samples will disappoint.

V. Sattui Winery is a great place for a picnic. Along with picnic tables and a child-friendly (not child-overrun) environment, Sattui sells everything you'll need for a relaxed meal in the warm afternoon sun: breads and gourmet cheeses, chocolates and corkscrews, meats and mustards. And some great wines as well. You might have to share a table in the European manner, but what better way to meet people from all over the U.S. and the world than over a glass of wine. This is one of the joys of Napa: it's simultaneously American and foreign, attracting visitors from Berlin just as easily as from Peoria, cosmopolitan while less formal than many urban areas. As with many of Napa's wineries, Sattui can be a bit crowded on the weekend. Still, it's a great time, and the environment is a very unpretentious one. No white table cloths here, just a simple-yet-refined experience.