I thought we all deserved a break. Once upon a time, I wrote a novel. This is a morsel of it for you tonight, all about my beloved Napa Valley. Pour yourself a big fat red while you read it.
There are all kinds of reasons why you should come to the Valley. Spectacular scenery every season, world class restaurants, resorts and wineries, chic boutiques, comfy country inns, balloon rides over back roads of live oak and riotous wildflowers.
There’s something else though, something much bigger that is a huge part of this story. It draws you in and holds you, makes you want to stay, makes you change your plans. You really do have to come here to get it.
It starts when you cross Butler Bridge, get your first look at the rolling vineyards, stands of towering eucalyptus and white herons browsing in Terra drenched by a river. As you head up Hwy. 29, past the Napa exits to where the Valley opens to you, it overtakes you, layer by layer, all of your senses invited. A whole body seduction, you breathe in air perfumed with nature’s sexy aromatherapy. Earthiness, sweetness and musk. Vineyard rows pass in slow motion, soothing and hypnotic and rhythmic, the harnessing of nature. The wild order. Even the mustard agrees to grow in neat splashes of neon yellow against brown wood and purple sky.
Layer by layer it gets you, lonely roads of ancient trees dripping in spanish moss, pastoral hills and grass fed cattle, clouds and shadows, white mist from Carneros colliding with pink light over Howell Mountain. It makes you want to lay down and cover yourself, receive it completely, close your eyes, breathe it in, taste it, this passionate life.
It gets into the bottles, it’s in the wine, and when you drink it fills your head and makes you crazy, makes you want and do and say and feel.
The air and the look and the taste of the Valley, layer by layer, gets into you, and makes you want to say yes.
Night.
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