Auberge du Soleil:
The Valley's Grande Dame

Every wine region has one property that wrote the rules the others follow. In Napa Valley, it is Auberge du Soleil — a hillside in Rutherford where, more than forty years ago, fine dining arrived in wine country and never left. The restaurant was among the valley's first; the hotel that grew around it became the address against which every subsequent Napa resort is quietly measured.

The setting does the first half of the work. Fifty guestrooms and suites are set across thirty-three acres of heritage olive and oak trees, with the valley floor spread out below. The finest of them are freestanding private maisons — more than 1,800 square feet of indoor-outdoor living, each with a separate living room and fireplace, a spa-like bathroom with soaking tub and walk-in shower, and an outdoor sculpted tub and rain shower under the open sky.

The spa is open to hotel guests only — tranquil soaking pools, a steam room, a sunlit courtyard — the kind of privacy that has become the property's signature. And then there is the restaurant: holding its Michelin star for nearly two decades, serving colorful seasonal dishes shaped by the valley's produce, with panoramic views that have launched a thousand anniversaries. The six-course Chef's Tasting remains the definitive Napa Valley dinner; the three- and four-course prix fixe lunches and dinners, its civilized shorter form.

Auberge du Soleil is not the newest address in Napa Valley. It is the reason the others exist. For availability and reservations, inquire through the journal.

Details verified at time of publication. Photography is illustrative — final features are photographed on location.

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