Where to wine and dine in stylish downtown Napa

The Napa Valley Wine Country is dotted with postcard-perfect towns. Yountville is the gastronomic center, St. Helena a Victorian-architecture-clad utopia and Calistoga the hippie uncle that bookends the county. What about the city of Napa itself ? Visitors often drive past the town that gives its name to the valley, but lately downtown Napa has blossomed into a destination in its own right.

While Napa today offers an idyllic urban center to match the prestige of Cabernets grown up-valley, it didn’t always elicit its adult “Main Street, USA” vibe. The cityscape of downtown Napa has transformed dramatically within the past two decades. In 1998, Napa residents voted to raise taxes for a flood protection project. As a result, outside investors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into development of the area. Twenty years later, the city is home to myriad wine bars, hotels and restaurants, as well as a new crop of tasting rooms from exciting young brands and established wineries alike.

The obvious downside to

tasting in downtown Napa is the absence of vineyards or cellars. Why drive all the way up to Wine Country if you’re not in, well, “the country”? While you may be removed from the actual centers of wine production, there are a few critical perks.

First, you can walk absolutely everywhere. The heart of downtown Napa is not that big, and you’re never more than a 15-minute stroll to your next destination. Assuming you’re staying overnight, traveling on foot also eliminates the need for a designated driver — so none of your friends will end up with the short straw.

Second, downtown Napa tasting rooms are often open

later than their vineyard-side counterparts. In some cases, last call is not until 10 p.m. or later, as opposed to rural wineries’ typical 4 p.m. closing time. You can enjoy a full day exploring the valley and still finish a good chunk of the below itinerary as an extended nightcap. Downtown Napa also boasts everything else you need for a complete Wine Country getaway. Hotels such as Archer, Andaz and the Napa River Inn offer luxury lodging, while the dining scene is more diverse than Yountville’s Michelinfueled restaurant row.

So park the car and walk your way through a full schedule of wining and dining.

Above, Marco Ortega pours a wine for customers at the Brown Downtown winery tasting room in Napa. Right, Jan Grant and her husband, Alex Grant, taste wine at the punk-inflected Gamling & McDuck winery tasting room.