The quality of light in certain places transforms what we do there more easily into memory. For me, the bright sun in Napa Valley, shining on rows of grapevines and golden hills, infuses meals and conversations with an enduring beauty.
I remember the mahi-mahi burger I enjoyed—very like nigiri on an eggy-sweet bun—on a translucent summer evening with close friends at Gott's Roadside, a local favorite off Highway 29 in St. Helena. Years ago, at the old Tra Vigne, another legendary St. Helena restaurant, I had a lunch with a fellow writer that lasted almost four hours. We shared a few plates and ate slowly, speaking about our friendships, our families, and our work. I remember a soft burrata and a perfect tomato. Time seemed to stop. It was the kind of relaxed and sensual meal during which it is possible to spend whole minutes admiring the beauty of the food or a drink in its clear glass, the kind of meal I seem especially to have when I'm in California wine country.
Residents of Napa Valley, that gorgeous, narrow swath of exorbitantly priced land north of San Francisco, are famously devoted to the cultivation of fine grapes, the making of wine, and the appreciation of that wine in excellent restaurants. Measuring 30 miles south to north and only five miles at its widest point, the valley possesses one of the rarest climates in the world. Its moderate temperatures, dry days, and cool nights are ideal for vintners. This devotion to the grape has led to an almost obsessive interest in fine dining, a parallel passion that seems to generate new accolades with impressive regularity: The tiny Napa town of Yountville (population 3,000) boasts more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than any other place in the world.
Heading north from San Francisco in August 2021, I did not expect to find the same Eden I had left two years before. Napa County had been buffeted by fire and, I feared, isolated by the pandemic. There would be inevitable changes. But as I crossed the wide, sun-dappled Petaluma River and continued into the valley, I was reassured to see orderly rows of grapevines headed by colorful rose blossoms, a refreshing harbinger of normalcy.
I was first drawn to Napa Valley by its well-known writers' conference, which attracts poets and novelists from around the country. In the dozen pilgrimages I've made here in the last decade, I've often thought of the rosebushes as unofficial greeters. Grapevines and rosebushes grow well in similar conditions; both are susceptible to the same insects and mildews, but rosebushes will show signs of aphids or disease first, which is why they're planted as a kind of early-warning system. Of course, winemaking today has become a technologically sophisticated industry, but the dazzling rose blossoms remain in the fields, a testament to the region's blend of beauty and business, pleasure and profit—and a reminder of its inherent natural fragility.
Community also matters to this locality of specialized winegrowers and restaurateurs, who live as neighbors in what amounts to a large, extremely valuable agricultural preserve. I spoke to several friends about how, in the wake of the 2020 fires that destroyed more than 30 Napa wineries, the community banded together to adopt more sustainable processes in order to ensure the survival of this beautiful, vulnerable place.
Jack Stuart, the retired manager at the Silverado Winery, remembers a time when the Valley was lusher. Now, he says, as wineries fight problems such as fire, smoke taint, and lack of rain, they are being more proactive in facing the actuality of climate change. From large ventures like Mondavi to smaller, family-run businesses, they are embracing drip irrigation and exploring other innovations in a bid to be more sustainable. Grapes, once one of the most water-intensive crops grown in the Valley, are now the least.
As they unite to preserve their craft, winemakers continue to support more intangible human endeavors. Local vintners have long been known for their championing of the arts and artists, and they have proceeded to buttress them in 2021. After going virtual in 2020, last summer the nonprofit Music in the Vineyards once again welcomed classical ensembles for live performances at wineries, which continue to lend their space, gratis, to the event. The Napa Valley Writers' Conference will carry on its tradition of sunset readings hosted by local wineries. Writers like myself, staying in housing offered by members of the community, will still find inspiration in a landscape witnessed by the likes of M.F.K. Fisher, the culinary belletrist who lived for two decades in a St. Helena Victorian, and Robert Louis Stevenson, whose 1883 travel memoir, The Silverado Squatters, contains a richly detailed accounting of his two-month honeymoon in Napa Valley.
Greg Evans, board president of Music in the Vineyards, told me recently that Robert Mondavi, a godfather of this valley, preached about “wine, food, and the art” as the holy triumvirate; in terms of pleasure and enjoyment, he noted, “they are all connected.” These interlocking partnerships strengthen Napa, helping it prevail in the wake of challenges by finding new means of sharing its many gifts.
Late last summer, as I sat at an outdoor poetry reading, sipping a crisp Chardonnay and watching the sun dip over rows of carefully tended vines, I understood that the most powerful components of this moment—the spoken words; the still, deepening blue evening sky; the minerality of the wine in my glass—would soon transform into pleasures past. And yet, for that vivid half hour, I was held in the present.
This article appeared in the January/February 2022 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
