On a Roll Through Napa’s Sleepy Wine Country

It’s early December and a piquant aroma sweetens the warm afternoon air of the passing fall.

You savor the heady bouquet. Pheasants stir as you wheel along the Silverado Trail past tiny, chateau-style wineries sprinkled upon the hills.

Winter is approaching and the vines are emblazoned across the valley in a final fanfare of yellows, crimson and chrome.

“How enchanting! I wouldn’t have done this any other way.” You coast to a stop, close your eyes and breath in the musty perfume.

You’re on a weekend bicycle tour of California’s Napa Valley, sampling its exquisite attractions and fine wines with a close look that an automobile tour could never uncork.

Between 2 1/2 and 3 million people visit the Napa and adjacent Sonoma and Alexander valley wineries each year. Most arrive by car and in summer, when the narrow roads are a torment of traffic and the vales are steeped in cloying heat. But that’s not the way to do it.

Visit in winter when the crowds are gone and the vales are back in sparkling clarity. The “crush” of autumn is over, the wines look after themselves and winery owners have time to chat.

A Bucolic Calm

A sleepy, closer feeling seeps into the valleys, granting a return to the bucolic calm of not too long ago, before the recent American passion for wine turned Napa into a much-visited destination.

It’s a scenario made for the lazy pace of cycling, as 26 of us discovered on a two-day tour arranged by Backroads Bicycle Touring of San Leandro, Calif.

We were a mixed bag of elderly and young couples and singles from across the United States. One man flew in from Florida for the relaxing weekend.

“I can’t imagine a more delightful--and delicious--way to increase my knowledge of wines,” he said at our introductory dinner, where we savored such sumptuous entrees as sauteed scallops and roast Muscovy duck amid the Art Deco surroundings of Calistoga’s historic landmark Mount View Hotel.

Our first day was a gentle roll along Silverado Trail past carpets of vines--Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir--resplendent in the low-lying sun.

The winding, well-paved road is set on the slopes of Napa’s eastern flank so that cyclists enjoy panoramic views of the scene set out below as they pedal at their own pace.

It was once a stagecoach route leading to the forest-covered slopes of Mt. St. Helena, which dominates the Napa skyline to the north. Miners, too, once plied the trail, carrying cinnabar by mule from the Silverado mine.

When the mine closed in 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson, the peripatetic writer, honeymooned in one of the abandoned bunkhouses. He is immortalized at the Silverado Museum in the nearby picture-post card town of St. Helena, 10 miles south of Calistoga.

We pedaled in seclusion past glades of blue oak and cottonwood, box elder and the occasional California black walnut. Squirrels and chipmunks played beside the road, gathering acorns and the bright red Christmas season berries of toyon and manzanita.

By late February the deep pink flowers of the Western redbud and the brilliant orange of the California poppy will border the fields of vines, announcing the arrival of spring.

Shadows played across the road, hawks and turkey vultures riding the weakened winter thermals in search of hidden prey. Packs of valley quail emerged from the grassy verge in seeming curiosity at our approach, then turned to scurry off on tiptoe as we zipped by.

Reflected Sunlight

A soft sun lingered on our backs.

Across the valley to our right we could see flashes of reflected sunlight as cars turned into the wineries off California 29. (Napa’s more “established” wineries are strung along 29--which parallels the Silverado trail--north and south of St. Helena.)

We wheeled right off Silverado and pedaled between the rows of vines until we merged with the traffic. On our left the Charles Krug winery, shaded by valley oaks, made a siren call.

“When Krug, a pioneering newspaper editor, planted his first vines and built his chateau-winery in 1861, he became the valley’s first commercial vintner,” our tour guide explained as she led us through the chilly storage vaults, where huge redwood vats laced the air with a raisiny aroma.

Our 40-minute tour completed, we gathered in the tasting rooms to learn the finer points of wine tasting.

“Better go steady,” said fellow cyclist Mike Caulcasi of San Jose as he finished off a Chardonnay and progressed to a robust Pinot Noir. “Otherwise we’ll be wobbling all the way back to Calistoga.”

Our route-guides (supplied by Backroads and attached to the handlebars in see-through plastic) listed six other wineries as possible stops for the day.

As we turned south together onto California 29, entering the arch of towering elms leading south from Krug to cycle that short distance into St. Helena, I became acutely aware of how much I’d missed from the confines of my car. Cycling was putting me in touch with part of my own backyard.

How come I’d never noticed the magnificent oleanders trained as trees beside the Gothic extravagance of the Beringer Brothers’ Rhine House and winery? Or the signs on the outskirts of St. Helena that led me uphill past statuesque manzanitas to the enchantment of Spring Mountain Winery?

A colorful Spanish entrepreneur, Tiburcio Parrott, created Spring Mountain as a larger version of the Beringers’ residence. It is known, these days, as the family manse in TV’s popular “Falcon Crest.” Tours of the grounds are given daily--$4, with a $2 rebate if you buy wine. Tours of the winery are free, although you must reserve two days ahead.

We were free to pause and linger, to feed the mares in wayside fields (how did she know I had an apple in my pack?); to browse through dusty general stores or just to sit beside the road and take in the enchantment of the wine country.

Bubbly Tour, Tram Ride

A bubbly tour of Hanns Kornell Champagne Cellars, and a tram ride to the sparkling white winery complex of Sterling Vineyards, set for all the world like a Mediterranean monastery atop a knoll at the valley’s northern end, proved a perfect end to the day.

Next day our 30-mile jaunt into the adjacent and rustic Alexander Valley to the north provided a total contrast. We pedaled uphill for two miles along a bumpy, untrammeled back road, past tiny meadows and groves of madrono and pine.

We rolled down lonesome lanes past hills burnt amber by the long summer sun, and thrilled as we raced downhill to return once more to the manicured calm of the Napa Valley.

It had been bicycle touring made easy. A support van traveled behind us to aid in bike repairs and to pick up any bottles of wine bought en route.

When it came time for our epicurean lunches, we fell onto green lawns at Chateau Boswell and Fieldstone wineries.

Out of the van our two guides produced elegant arrays of turkey and sausage, Brie, Gruyere and grapes, olives, tomatoes and juicy pears, which we washed down with hearty wines and glucose-rich juices, followed by an hour or so napping in the sun.

As the sun sank below the hills and a thin, cooling mist settled on the valley like a wet towel, we slipped out of our cycling togs, oozed into a muscle-soothing hot mud bath and soaked in the bubbling mud--a mix of volcanic pumice and steaming mineral water supplied from hot springs.

Calistoga became known as the fashionable “Hot Springs of the West” in 1852, when a wealthy Mormon, Sam Brannan, turned the sleepy town into a spa resort.

Backroads includes the treat as part of its winter package.

After the dip you’ll probably be asleep before the 10 p.m. news.

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Tour guests spend their nights at Calistoga’s historic Mount View Inn. This beautifully restored jewel of the Art Deco period is renowned for its superb cuisine-- al dente fettucine with fresh pesto, corn and crayfish chowder, roast loin of pork with peach sauce, muscovy duck, and frozen honey souffle flavored with Grand Marnier and topped with fresh strawberry sauce, for example--prepared under the watchful eye of chef Diane Pariseau.

The hotel has its own hot tubs and Jacuzzi, plus a lively Art Deco lounge bar where music buffs can catch swing, jazz and Dixieland fever seven nights a week. Mount View hotel, 1457 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga 94515; call (707) 942-6877.

Each season in the wine country is different. In winter, days are normally clear and temperatures in the 50s to low 70s are invigorating. January through March is Northern California’s rainy season, although short periods of rain are normally interspersed with long stretches of fine warm weather. In spring and autumn, days are warm (average high in the 70s), evenings cool and rain a rarity. Summer is hot (90s) and dry.

The cost of the luxury two-day weekend is $276, including accommodations, meals, a hot mineral and mud bath (January through March only) and the services of two tour guides. The tour is offered all year.

Those not bringing their own bicycles can rent 18-speed Schwinns (complete with touring accessories), plus helmets at an extra, nominal cost.

The tour is also offered as a camping option (two days, $149). Other three-day and five-day wine district tours also are available. Contact Backroads Bicycle Touring, P.O. Box 1626 San Leandro, Calif. 94577, or call (415) 895-1783.