Travel to Napa Valley

Napa Valley is one of the premier travel destinations in the world. Breathtaking views abound at every turn – mustard in the late winter, picturesque rolling hills planted with vineyards year-round and wineries of every stature dot the landscape. Whether you are wine tasting, dining at renowned restaurants like the French Laundry, pampering yourself with a mud bath in Calistoga, or just enjoying your stay at quaint bed & breakfasts, hotels or resorts … Napa Valley is your spot of heaven on earth.

The Napa Valley is a name derived from the language of the area’s native Wappo Indians, and has come to mean “land of plenty.” ”Napa” has meant a place of natural abundance for centuries—our rivers full of fish, our forests, rolling hills, wildlife, climate, and fertile land for planting crops all combine to make The Napa Valley a place of singular beauty and productivity.

The Napa Valley has weathered some tough times in its relatively short history. The Valley’s once-famed Silverado Mine was exhausted in 1875 after just three years of operation. In 1893 an outbreak of phylloxera, a serious grapevine disease, crippled many of the valley’s 140 wineries.

Prohibition, enacted in 1920, dealt the final blow to the early wine industry. Only a handful of wineries survived the thirteen years of Prohibition by selling sacramental wines and by selling grapes to home winemakers. Today, however, with vision and perseverance, the industry has greatly surpassed its earlier “golden age,” and now boasts nearly 400 wineries producing some of the world’s finest wines.

The Napa Valley continues to be a thriving agricultural area, a characteristic not typical of communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is thanks to a group of concerned citizens who in 1968 had the foresight to create the first Agricultural Preserve in the State, indeed in the entire nation. A  land zoning ordinance voted on by a majority of the county’s citizens established agriculture and open space as the “best use” for the land within Napa County. The “Ag Preserve,” as it is called by locals, has been a model for other areas to follow.