{"id":654,"date":"2017-07-29T19:29:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T19:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2017-07-29T19:29:29","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T19:29:29","slug":"no-left-turns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"No Left Turns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s no place in the world that\u2019s more fun for wine tasters than Napa Valley.\u00a0 So many wineries.\u00a0 So many <em>great<\/em> wineries!\u00a0 And they\u2019re one after another after another, primarily on two main roads and the cross streets that connect them.\u00a0 Of those two main roads, the one with the greatest concentration of top-flight wineries is Route 29, also known as the St. Helena Highway. However, the ability to choose from among such a plenitude means that lots of people want to drive along that road and visit.<\/p>\n<p>Especially on weekends and holidays, traffic is so dense that it is difficult to get from one place to another.\u00a0 If you only have the chance to travel to Napa Valley on a weekend of holiday, you\u2019re pretty much stuck with a bumper-to-bumper crawl.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing you can do to make it easy, but there are ways to make a voyage into this fabulous corner of Wine Country easier, less onerous.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Do your homework before you go.<\/strong>\u00a0 Don\u2019t expect to show up in Napa Valley on a gorgeous summer weekend (and they seem like they\u2019re all gorgeous weekends) and go to a favorite winery in St. Helena, then down to Yountville, back up to Oakville and finish in Calistoga.\u00a0 For one thing, the stretch of Route 29 with all the wineries is nearly 30 miles long.\u00a0 Don\u2019t plan to go back and forth all day long.\u00a0 You\u2019ll spend all your time in the car instead of in tasting rooms.\u00a0 So get a map and plan your destinations before you get behind the wheel.\u00a0 There are several good maps available on the web; try <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visitnapavalley.com\/wineries\/winery-map\/\">https:\/\/www.visitnapavalley.com\/wineries\/winery-map\/<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No left turns.\u00a0 <\/strong>One thing that the map won\u2019t tell you is how difficult it is to get from one side of Route 29 to the other.\u00a0 Even with all the traffic, it\u2019s still a country road with very few lights.\u00a0 So if, for example, if you\u2019re at Heitz Cellars and you want to go across the street to Flora Springs Winery (you can see it from there),\u00a0 it can take as long as 15 minutes for the flow of cars on the two sides to part long enough for you to get across.\u00a0 So plan your itinerary so that you visit a few on the east side heading north; then go to an intersection with a light; turn around and go to some on the west side heading south.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/heitz.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-655 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/heitz-300x71.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"549\" height=\"130\" srcset=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/heitz-300x71.jpg 300w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/heitz-768x182.jpg 768w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/heitz.jpg 950w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 549px) 100vw, 549px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Photos courtesy of Heitz Cellars<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Some areas are easier than others.\u00a0 <\/strong>There are certain strips of Route 29 where it\u2019s easier to visit excellent wineries without having to drive very far between them\u2026and not turning left.\u00a0 For example, on the east side between the Oakville and Rutherford Cross Roads, there are Opus One, Nickel &amp; Nickel, Cakebread, Sequoia Grove, Foley Johnson and St. Supery.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t find a few sips of wine that you like amongst all of those, you either have extraordinarily high standards or you\u2019re just not trying.\u00a0 And then at the end you have Rutherford Grill, where you can get something to eat.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Avoid Route 29 altogether.\u00a0 <\/strong>There are great Napa Valley wineries elsewhere than this crowded road.\u00a0 The roughly parallel artery running north and south is the Silverado Trail, which is wider and much less travelled.\u00a0 Wineries along there are not to be sneezed at either, including Clos du Val, Chimney Rock, Regusci, Stag\u2019s Leap, Stags\u2019 Leap (watch that apostrophe), Pine Ridge and Silverado Vineyards.\u00a0 Left turns are no joy here either so you can follow the same strategy as on Route 29.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The best advice, as always, is to prepare your trip in advance and to be sensible in both your selection of wineries to visit and the amount of wine to taste.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let \u201cOh, it\u2019s so crowded\u201d discourage you from visiting one of, if not <em>the<\/em>, best American winemaking region.\u00a0 If so, go visit during the week, not on weekends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s no place in the world that\u2019s more fun for wine tasters than Napa Valley.\u00a0 So many wineries.\u00a0 So many great wineries!\u00a0 And they\u2019re one after another after another, primarily on two main roads and the cross streets that connect them.\u00a0 Of those two main roads, the one with the greatest concentration of top-flight wineries &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=654\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No Left Turns<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}