The Napa Valley is an area just north of San Francisco that’s really a collection of towns surrounded by America’s most beloved vineyards. Running 30 miles north to south and five miles across east to west, it’s situated in just the right spot to grow the best grapes for winemaking. The two mountain ranges of the Napa Valley were created during the formation of the San Andreas fault. The Vaca Range, which forms the valley’s eastern boundary, shields it from the scorching heat of the Central Valley. While the Mayacamas Mountains separate it on the west from the cooler, marine influences experienced in neighboring Sonoma County. The hills and knolls you see on the valley floor are the product of huge megaslides from the Vaca Mountains many years ago, and affect weather patterns within those areas. The perfect climate coupled with the lack of big city pollution make it the perfect getaway for people who enjoy the clean, fresh country air and love good wine. And they aren’t afraid to pay top dollar for it. While San Franciscans are the primary benefactors, people from around the world come to Napa for wine tastings at the wonderful wineries dotting the landscape. 

Napa Valley isn’t one place, but a collection of small towns surrounded by vineyards and wineries. The vineyards and wineries are only part of the experience. Towns like Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga, Healdsburg, Oakville and Rutherford also give visitors a chance to enjoy wine country, offering lots of shopping, very fine dining, and any number of fabulous bed and breakfast accommodations in wonderful old turn-of-the-century homes that have been restored to their 19th-century glory to be the perfect alternative to cold hotels and motels. And it’s all wonderfully walkable so you can shop, eat, sightsee, shop some more, eat some more, drop your purchases off at the hotel, and catch a wine tasting. It must be great to live in San Francisco, and be able to escape for a weekend to wine country, where you can get a taste of clean, country living, and then return to the city with a couple thousand dollars worth of wine to restock your wine cellar…or your wine fridge, depending on the size of your bank account.