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Here
are some great Dog-Friendly Day Trips you can enjoy with your pet
while visiting the Napa Valley with special thanks to
TheBark.com. |
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Written by: Todd Henneman
(Appearing originally in
Issue #30, Spring 2005) |
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Don’t be surprised if Charlie or Tosca greet you at
RustRidge Ranch and
Winery in St. Helena. Charlie might even lick your hand, if you offer it.
“They’re the true hosts,” Susan Meyer said of the two yellow Labrador
Retrievers. |
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Tosca, named after the opera by Giacomo Puccini, and Charlie
live on 442 acres that include the winery and a bed and breakfast. They
aren’t the only dogs allowed here, however. When you visit, your dog can
come, too—even in RustRidge’s tasting room. |
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“A lot of people have brought their dogs here through the years, so
it’s not really an issue,” said Meyer, who owns the winery with her
husband, Jim Fresquez. “Our dogs are excited to see them.” |
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And I was excited to hear that my dog could join me. When I recently
visited Northern California’s wine country, I was determined to find
places that would welcome my 3-year-old Golden Retriever/Chow Chow mix,
Bailey. What I found were Napa Valley vintners and boutique inns that
cater to dogs as much as to their owners. |
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Dogs are a fixture at several wineries. Take Harley, the resident black
Lab mix at
Casa Nuestra Winery & Vineyards, an artisan winery in St.
Helena that produces 1,500 cases annually. While human visitors enjoy tastings offered in a yellow farmhouse, Harley leads what owner Eugene
Kirkham calls the Canine Tour. “She’s willing to show other dogs around to
all of the place she likes,” said Stephanie Trotter-Zacharia, the
apprentice winemaker. |
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Other vintners, such as
Dutch Henry Winery near Calistoga, allow dogs
on the grounds but not in the tasting room. Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery
(now known as the
Rubicon Estate Winery),
owned by Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, permits
leashed dogs outside but forbids them inside its Inglenook Chateau, which
includes tasting rooms and stone cellars. The chateau’s Centennial Museum
contains memorabilia from Coppola’s films, including Vito Corleone’s desk
from The Godfather and costumes from 1992’s Bram Stoker's Dracula. |
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A nice place to pause from wine tasting is the roadside town of St.
Helena, bisected by Highway 29, the main artery through wine country. An
upscale pet boutique on Main Street called
Fideaux caught my eye and
proved to be a treasure trove of specialty items and gifts that I hadn’t
seen elsewhere. I loved the dog-faced clocks, but defied temptation. Yet I
couldn’t resist a book about communicating with your dog. |
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Sleeping Dogs Lie in Napa
Sometimes finding a place that both Bailey and I like can be difficult.
Not all places allow pets. And I don’t like to sacrifice creature comforts
just because I’m traveling with a critter. Fortunately, several A-list
inns in the city of Napa welcome well-behaved canine companions. |
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Visitors who want to stay in one of Napa’s fanciful historic mansions
should consider the
Beazley House, a pet-friendly bed and breakfast on
First Street, a district that was home to many of the city’s most wealthy
families in the early 1900s. The house was built in 1905 for Dr. Adolph
Kahn, a surgeon. It later was owned by Joan Hitchcock, a flamboyant San
Francisco socialite who had six husbands and who claimed she had an affair
with John F. Kennedy. (She died in 1982 at age 49.) One room particularly
worth requesting is the spacious “Enchanted Rose” in the carriage house.
It includes a fireplace, two-person spa and an adjacent private garden. |
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The Napa Inn, a bed and breakfast in two Victorian houses, also allows
dogs in two rooms, the Garden Cottage and Angelina’s Garden Room. The
Garden Cottage has French doors that lead to a private garden. Angelina’s
Garden Room has a private garden as well as a private patio and a
whirlpool. |
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Travelers who prefer hotels to B&Bs might enjoy the
Napa River Inn, one
of the newest pet-friendly options. Opened in 2000, the inn hints of a
bygone era during which the Napa Valley was famous for wheat. When Napa
was founded in 1847, farmers sent wheat to San Francisco on schooners that
came up the Napa River. This 66-room boutique hotel is in a restored 1884
mill and warehouse that, from the outside, retains the look of a mill.
Guests with dogs receive a basket that includes a wine-colored dog blanket
and Char-Dog-Nay Biscuits made with cabernet sauvignon. |
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Fetching Sights
Staying someplace historic is appropriate in Napa because much of the
downtown looks as though it belongs in another era. In fact, Napa claims
to have more structures built before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
than any other Bay Area city. |
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Efforts to save older buildings took hold in the 1970s, after
preservationists became alarmed by the demolition of several historic
buildings to develop modern shopping strips, epitomized in Napa by
Clocktower Plaza. Now, the city boasts that its redevelopment programs
strive to “preserve the Victorian charm and historic character” of the
city. |
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Downtown Napa proved easy to explore with a dog because I could walk
almost everywhere. For $2, the Napa Valley Conference and Visitor Bureau
sells the 28-page Historic Walking Tours of Napa, an architectural guide
to the city. It contains intriguing historical tidbits, such as the fact
that some of the businesses built over Napa Creek in the 1860s had trap
doors, which allowed merchants to fish while working. |
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The self-guided tour starts near the
Napa Valley Opera House, an
Italianate theater built in 1879 and reopened in 2003 after being dark for
89 years. The opera house, which had become an eyesore, was rescued by
volunteers, who formed a non-profit group to raise money for its
restoration. Now the exterior looks much as it did when John Philip
Sousa’s band played here. |
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Not far from the Opera House stands another handsome Italian design,
the Winship Building, distinguished by ornate suns in its pediment. But my
favorite spot was a little off the main route. The
First Presbyterian
Church on Third Street, opened in 1874, is an unmistakable example of
Victorian Gothic architecture. |
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On the other side of the Napa River stands Copia: The American Center
for Wine, Food and the Arts, designed by New York architect James Stewart
Polshek, whose work includes Bill Clinton’s presidential library in
Arkansas. Bailey napped outside while I explored the three-year-old
center’s edible gardens and exhibits that include everything from Julia
Child’s copper pots to PEZ dispensers. I also sampled regional wines and
gourmet chocolates after lunch at Julia’s Kitchen, a restaurant named for
the masterful cooking instructor who served as an honorary trustee until
her death in August 2004. |
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After sniffing around downtown, I sensed Bailey’s desire to frolic. We
drove to
Alston Park, which has a three-acre off-leash dog park called
Canine Commons. Dogs also can walk off-leash in the 26-acre Cherry Orchard
section in the southwest corner of Alston Park and leash elsewhere among
the hills of the 157-acre open space on Dry Creek Road. |
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Bailey loved romping around the dog park. When it was time to leave, I
tempered Bailey’s disappointment with a reward—a dog treat shaped like a
wine bottle. Bailey wagged his tail and licked my cheek. I didn’t need my
book to know that he was telling me that he was happy to be with me. I
wouldn’t have it any other way. |
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