Toast, with a glass of Napa wine

Hilaya Travel Ideas Slow travel, fine life | EDITION 3 – July 2008   For wine lovers, California is a heaven. Each year, the Wine Spectator magazine will review the wines around the world.  The Top 100 of 2007 List came out of their review from some 15,000 wines in blind tasting.   Among the 100 wines, California is home to 20 wines (including two in top 10), while France 24 wines and Italy 13 wines. For San Franciscans, though, this is probably not that big news.  The world-famous Napa wine country is just two hours from San Francisco or one hour drive from Berkeley. Some have their second homes or even small vineyards there.  Many have been there at least once, if not every week. Napa is for winetasting, of course.  All told, there're over 350 vineyards in Napa and another 250 in Sonoma.  So even for winetasting, you can just walk, drive, ride a horse or a bicycle around,  or get a private tour by limo or a van or the Napa Valley Wine Train, and.  To get some glimpse on Napa valley, you can view it from the hot ballon, the gondola, the helicopter, or simply from any angle.  It's also a top destination for wedding, ultra-romantic honeymoon, fine dinning (French Laundry comes to my mind), and of course, golf. Savvy travelers also go there for shopping (Napa Premium Outlet boasts over 50 premium brands), mud bathing, opera, gallery/musuem (otherwise known as the American Center for Wine Food and the Arts, or COPIA), or even cooking lesson at the famous CIA (not to be confused with that agency). Napa is definitely more than just wine.  It's also about the culture and the people. For example, the Napa legendary Robert Mondavi who died in March 2008 at age 94,  did so much to help put American/California wine into the international stage. It's also about the art of life – as a seasoned winemaker will tell you, "some of the world's most distinctive and flavorful wines come from vineyards that thrive on fairly barren, rocky land, including steep mountainsides where even native plants struggle to grow" (Moon Handbook: Northern California Wine Country, Philip Goldsmith, Jan 2008).  Just picture that. At Hilaya, we also tend to believe it's about a lifestyle.  It takes years to plant and grow new grape wines (5 years is not uncommon).  It also takes time and great care to blend, produce, bottle and age the wine.  Anything can happen.  We would just have to be passionate, persistent and faithful, no matter what it might turn out.  So for any great wine, we all taste it with heart-felt appreciation.  We would like to invite you to visit Napa, for the forthcoming 2008 Harvest Season, or just about any day you feel like to toast with a glass of wine. To say we know how to make your Napa experience unique – either first-time visitor or Napa patrons, big or small events, wine drinker or not – would not be an exaggeration, as we are proudly part of an extended family in which winemakers, chefs, hoteliers, wine tour guides, and many others who all share the love for Napa. Toast, for Napa! Lingling Yang Founder & Fellow Traveler Hilaya Travel | +1-604-375-0398 ( All the photos in this post are courtesy of Rick Zhuang ). PS – For a great Northern California experience including Napa and other places, please download the file below. Download summer_2008_northern_california_vacation_v3.pdf (PDF, 634KB)