A few years ago, the owners of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars did something that struck some observers as crazy. On a two-acre parcel in one of the world’s priciest wine-growing areas in the heart of Napa Valley, they brought in backhoes and tractors to pull out their cabernet sauvignon vines and replace them with a lake. Notably, the lake was not a decorative water feature for guests in the winery’s glass-walled tasting room. It was a reservoir, filled with groundwater and ready to protect the rest of Stag’s Leap’s vines against future heat waves.
“When you need water, you need water,” says Marcus Notaro, Stag’s Leap’s head winemaker. “For us it was worth sacrificing some pretty nice cabernet to have our own stable and sufficient water supply.”
Nearly half a century ago, Stag’s Leap shocked the French establishment—and the world—by beating every Bordeaux to win the top prize at the 1976 blind tasting known as the Judgment of Paris. Since then, Napa Valley has become synonymous with America’s biggest and boldest wines. But at a time when winemakers worldwide are facing not only the unpredictable hazards of climate change but also the fickle tastes of drinkers young and old, how are the next 50 years shaping up in Napa?
Another enticing clue lies at Promontory, the cult winery hidden behind an unmarked gate in the hills of Oakville. In 1984, when Bill Harlan founded the now-iconic Harlan Estate, he said he was thinking two centuries ahead, with a plan for a family business that would last for generations. His son, Will, now oversees all of Harlan’s labels, including 16-year-old Promontory, with an approach that blends his father’s high-minded, terroir-is-everything philosophy with the latest science.
Geologists from Stanford University, brought in to analyze the depths below Promontory’s wild, heavily forested terrain, found large quantities of metamorphic rock, which makes the vineyards’ soil extremely variable, even from one vine to the next. That discovery sparked a plan to build detailed data profiles for each individual plant. Every season, drones fly through the rows of vines, capturing photos of the different growing stages to help determine precisely how each vine should be pruned and how many bunches of grapes it should hold.
“We thought, if we could really treat each vine as an individual, rather than prescribing a set of practices for all of them, we might get to a whole new level of expressing this place—and a new level of wine growing,” Will says.
Delighted wine critics clearly think the approach is working: Promontory’s 2018 vintage, hailed as “just a brilliant wine” and “nothing short of spectacular,” received multiple perfect scores.
Hudson Ranch
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
Downtown Napa
A few miles down Highway 29, on the outskirts of the city of Napa, a different vision of the valley’s future is on view at the 1960s-inspired winery and tasting room Ashes & Diamonds. When it launched in 2017 in a retro-modernist space, its program celebrated wine as a communal beverage—something that’s always meant to be shared with people and paired with food. Although the ambiance is loose and laid-back at the winery’s tastings and events, owner Kashy Khaledi is no lightweight. A former L.A. music executive whose parents own the nearby winery Darioush, Khaledi is a serious student of Napa’s history. He’s recruited acclaimed winemakers like Steve Matthiasson, a specialist in regenerative farming, to produce a range of minimally processed wines that appeal to contemporary drinkers while hearkening back to Napa’s early days. “Everything here is a tribute to what Napa Valley once was,” Khaledi says.
Ashes & Diamonds Winery
Today, throughout the valley, even the legacy wineries have been stepping up their tasting experience. Bella Union, a younger offshoot of esteemed stalwart Far Niente, bills its new space as a “playground for the wine curious,” with an outdoor tasting bar that welcomes walk-ins. That pedigreed-but-not-fussy vibe is also bringing new life to the local restaurant scene. Chef Elliot Bell, Thomas Keller’s longtime right hand at The French Laundry, recently opened Charlie’s, an instant hit for its top-notch fried chicken, brick-oven flatbread, and convivial horseshoe bar. Down the road, Michelin-starred chef Philip Tessier, of Press fame, has just unveiled Under-Study, a casual, 4,500-square-foot cafe and market that shares a space with the Napa Valley Museum of Art & Culture.
When it comes to balancing Napa’s past with its future, few places set a better example than Hudson Ranch, the idyllic 2,000-acre farm and winery in the Carneros district. Here, flocks of well-fed sheep and goats wander among the vines, watched over by a Pyrenean mountain dog. In some ways, owners Lee and Cristina Hudson are throwbacks to the sustainable-by-default winemaking families of old, overseeing everything on their estate, from planting and pruning to bottling and selling. But they are also addressing a key challenge for Napa Valley right now: maintaining its reputation for quality while making its offerings more varied and accessible. The couple knows that one important step is loosening some of the county’s rigid permitting rules and other restrictions that they once favored but now see as outdated.
Hudson Ranch owners Lee and Cristina Hudson.
Cristina, a veteran of Chez Panisse who has also worked in Japan and is well-connected in the design world, has added hikes and picnics to the options at Hudson’s chic tasting room. She notes that community ties are especially important in a place like Napa Valley and that attracting young people to the region is crucial. “There’s a perception that young people—the dreamers and bootstrappers—don’t come to Napa, but there are plenty of them,” she says. “You just need to know where to look.”
These days, downtown Napa—a short drive from Stanly Ranch, Auberge Resorts Collection’s newest property in the valley—is where many of those younger folks can be found. Thanks to the area’s superior talent pool, even some of the sandwich makers here have trained in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants. If you’re wondering why that croissant you had at artisan bakery Moulin was so perfectly flaky and buttery, it’s because co-owner Zach Kaylor learned breadmaking in the French Alps and mills his own flour daily. Around the corner at the gourmet deli Contimo, the two owners, veterans of haute food temples like Per Se, pickle their own cucumbers and cure their own meats. There’s also Benevolent Neglect, one of a crop of groovy new tasting rooms in the city center—this one serving its own minimal-intervention wines and doubling as a vinyl lounge. Come nightfall, the industry crowd schmoozes at wine bar Cadet or goes for cocktails at buzzy Chispa, where the small plates are expertly paired with tequilas instead of wines.
Of course, this is Napa, where the vineyards and fields are never far away. Guests at Stanly Ranch, before sitting down for a meal of local quail or Miyagi oysters at the restaurant Bear, often swing by the chef’s produce garden to ogle the organic chard or feed the rare-breed chickens. And what about grapes? There are young vines growing all over the 700-acre resort. Their yields can already be sampled at Bear in the form of chardonnay sorbet and a fizzy pét-nat blend made from 100% pinot noir.
All of Napa’s wine producers, big and small, seem to agree that the new range of offerings is a welcome sign of evolution in a region that’s still young, progressive, and on the rise 50 years after its big moment at the Judgment of Paris.
Nestled in the heart of Napa Valley’s wine country is Stanly Ranch’s collection of new luxury residences and amenities. Offering all the comforts and privacy of a luxury home—but with access to the Auberge Resort Collection property’s 700 secluded acres—each of the residences offers serene views of rolling vineyards and the Mayacamas Mountains.
The collection brings a new way to experience all that Napa Valley has to offer. Designed to embrace the California indoor-outdoor lifestyle, the expansive, two-bedroom, fully furnished Villas feature open-plan interiors with soaring ceilings, spacious courtyards, and outdoor dining areas. In the secluded three- to six-bedroom Vineyard Homes, alfresco living reigns, with roomy interiors that spill out onto lush courtyards, private pools, and outdoor fireplaces.
Just steps away, residents can enjoy Stanly Ranch’s award-winning amenities, including three wellbeing centers—Halehouse, Springhouse, and Fieldhouse—which work in concert to provide everything from sleep, hydration, and mindfulness programs to targeted experiences and exercises that optimize the mind and body’s potential. The resort also offers tailored activities like fishing excursions on the Napa River, artisan craft workshops, and falconry presentations.
Stanly Ranch’s culinary destinations offer homeowners more local immersion, both on-site and in-residence. Seasonal menus are inspired by the resort’s farm, which also contributes to the mixologist’s botanical cocktails. The best of Napa Valley’s wines are in view, and residents can experience private wine tastings and tours that bring the wine country right into their own home.