Just before you reach the downtown area of St. Helena, you come across an old drive-in restaurant, Taylor’s Refresher, which is a destination of local families and tourists alike. Driving just a bit farther north takes you into downtown St. Helena, which has the look and feel of 1950s small-town America.

Turn west off of Highway 29 in the downtown area and you will come to a street named Spring Mountain Highway. After a right turn onto Spring Mountain Highway, you’ll soon realize that it’s anything but a highway, but more of an old, winding country road that leads you several thousand feet up through a very rural area, leaving behind all of the commercialization of Napa Valley and into the realm of the 30 plus wineries that comprise the Spring Mountain Appellation.

At one juncture, you approach an area where it narrows to one-way traffic because two extremely large, tall and beautiful redwood trees have overtaken the pavement that used to allow two cars to pass. The drive takes you through a number of hairpin curves and is lined with giant redwoods in some areas and vineyards in others as you pass the wineries that comprise this appellation.

This drive is one of my favorites in the valley and is absolutely beautiful in the summer, when all the plants and vegetation are a lush green. It leads to stops such as Spring Mountain Winery, Robert Keenan Winery, Schweiger Vineyards, Pride Mountain Vineyards and Barnett Vineyards. Each of these wineries is open to the public, but they require an advance reservation.

Due to the mountain environment, the grapevines struggle for water and other nutrients, causing their roots to travel deep below the surface in search of moisture. Vineyard managers have to be careful just how much their growing efforts “stress” the fruit. They provide the vines with very little water, making the vines struggle to obtain the necessities that allow them to grow in a healthy manner. This creates a smaller crop than normal and also results in smaller grapes, but with much more intense flavors in the fruit. In my opinion, Spring Mountain wineries produce the some of the best-tasting merlots due to the intensity of their flavors.

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