Dreamscapes Travel & Lifestyle Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dreamscapes.ca/i/776538
WINTER/SPRING 2017 DREAMSCAPES 45 cious room's impossibly high ceiling, stone walls and polished wood floor and tables add to the rustic, casual feel you'll find even in the valley's most posh restaurants. Yet the service is invariably excellent; the most junior server can explain exactly how your cocktail was made and describe every wine in the cellar. Menus here are also defined by the for- agers and farmers who bring fresh seasonal produce to the restaurant's back door, which may explain why we ate a year's worth of charred Brussels sprouts in three days. At Michelin-starred La Toque in Napa's Westin Verasa, chef/owner Ken Frank served a five- course squash-centric dinner from the hotel's garden, each with a carefully chosen wine. The refined, satisfying menu opened with fairy-tale pumpkin velouté garnished with walnut, celery and green apple, and ended with donuts and squash ice cream. Along with happy, locally sourced meat, poultry and seafood, vegetables also feature prominently at Harvest Inn down the road in St. Helena, one of the newest restaurant/ inns in star chef Charlie Palmer's empire. Guests are invited to stroll through the culi- nary gardens before or after dinner, and most menu items feature estate-grown ingredients. The signature dish here is the generous truffle chicken for two, served with butternut squash, risotto and truffle butter. You may even get a chance to meet the personable chef himself. For a change of pace, head to the Oxbow Public Market, a short walk from Napa's Main Street, and mingle with the locals. I could have spent hours eating oysters at Hog Island and fresh crab and duck tacos from C CASA with a glass of local wine, sit- ting at the Ritual coffee bar with a smooth cappuccino, checking out California olive oil and Napa Valley Distillery's local lemon liqueur and sampling cheese with names like Fat Bottom Girl, Holey Cow and Mid- night Moon. All under one roof. THE WINE Once the grapes have been crushed and the juice transferred to tanks and barrels to fer- ment and age, winery floors are scrubbed clean and the equipment is stored for another year, leaving a faint tang in the air. The first time I visited Napa, I was thrilled to see signs for the valley's famous cellars as we drove north from Napa to Calistoga. Names included Cakebread, Beringer, St. Supery and Robert Mondavi, who opened his winery 50 years ago, con- vinced that Napa's warm, dry climate could make world-class wines. His vision put Napa and California wines on the map forever. While the legends live on, it was time to meet the upstarts, new boutique wineries with state-of-the-art cellars that are as proud of their art collections, event spaces and eco-friendliness as they are of their pre- mium wines. Brasswood Cellars (formerly Cairdean Estate) is a sprawling wine village built on the site of a former outlet mall on the St. Helena highway. It's owned by Stacia Williams, a former software engineer who returned to school to study winemaking, and her aerospace engineer husband Edwin. Both believe wine should be shared among friends, and they've made their tasting room and eateries as welcoming as possible. B Cellars, located at Napa's northern tip near Calistoga, installed an open kitchen and an executive chef in its modern, airy hospitality house to teach guests how to pair food and wine. The guided wine tasting comes with perfectly matched bites of sea- sonal food, much of it sourced from B's gardens. The chef even raises chickens to produce eggs for his homemade pasta. A short walk past eerily lifelike bronze sculptures created by artist Seward Johnson brings visitors to the winery itself, which includes an elegant 1,394-square-metre underground space used to age wine— some in handsome red concrete tanks— and host events. THE SPA The new spa at the famous Meadowood resort in St. Helena seems lost in the woods, its quiet taupe exterior blending perfectly with its environment. Even the picture win- dows in the cosy, comfortable suites