The environmental resurgence of the Napa River has created a Russian River- like experience in our backyard.
Rivers, like trains, are great for the imagination. There is a deeper connection that is hard to pin-point which I believe is the human drive for efficiency. Getting something for nothing. Like the invention of the wheel! Just rolling along has put a smile on our face since the beginning of time. The ear-to-ear grin on my sons face when we rode bikes to school for the first time. The breath of fresh air when Lewis & Clark made it over the Continental Divide and could ride rivers West toward the Pacific for the duration of the trip. There is a rush in all of us when we can harness nature: riding a river in an inner tube or gliding on the tide, with the wind at our back connects us with nature and can ignite our curiosity. Hitting a jackpot on a slot machine at Cache Creek is a similar feeling – no matter how many losses you’ve taken – in that moment your life changes. An unfamiliar medium that saves time & effort.
The environmental resurgence of the Napa River has created a Russian River- like experience in our backyard. It’s clean again. And you can ride the tide for 14 miles and do it easily if you check the tide charts first.
The early explorers including George C Yount all arrived by river. The predominant mode of transportation was Kanaka Whale Boat tenders captained by Hawaiian Islanders who created business ferrying people, provisions and information throughout the Bay Area primarily from Yerba Buena Island to Vallejo/Benicia and from there up to Sutter’s Mill or the outpost on the Napa River. Riding the tide!
Traveling upriver is like going back in time to experience 3 waves of economic boom & bust cycles. But this land was destined for grapes evident in the early explorers writing of the wild grapevines that grew along the river bank, the first sign that Napa would become a promising viticultural area. And as you clear the Oxbow, on the right bank lye’s the site of the Wappo Fishing Village. People come & go but the land remains! The same volcanic land that begets the finest Cabernet in the world was also sourced by the Wappo Tribe for arrowheads. These weapons contributed to the vast territory and growth of the tribe including trade routes to Yosemite. But it was also the raging flood waters that sculpted this landscape.
While the river was mined for rock to build San Francisco and supplied hay for their horses, Napa became the largest leather tannery on the West Coast.
Napa is a steep valley, dropping 350ft from Calistoga to Napa. And the flood waters, which occur every 3-5 years don’t slowly meander. They rage downhill. Millions of years of these events sweeps the topsoil, exposing rock and stripping away nutrients which in turn creates stressed vines. More concentrated, flavors. Coupled with nutrient poor volcanic soils and a marine influence off San Pablo Bay
Sidenote: George met these guys while hunting sea otter in Los Angeles and then reacquainted with an enclave of the accomplished watermen in the Bay Area. In fact, the first vineyard in California was probably financed by sea otter pelts which George Yount sold to Boston Fur Trading Companies – a bounty for which he gave much of the accolades to the accomplished Hawaiian watermen who kept the boat steady while avoiding violent surf and smashing against the rocks.
