Now that I’ve wet my feet in wine, I thought I’d do a little exploration of Napa before heading to some of the vineyards.

Napa is a rather large town and functions as a city, not a cutie-pie tourist village.

Real people live here and there are plenty of big-box stores if you need to fill in your travel needs.

You can count on finding Walmart, Costco, Target, World Market and much more. There’s even a factory outlet mall, Napa Premium Outlets, on the other side of the highway as you enter town.

But I came for the food and wine. There are lots of grocery stores, specialty food markets, places for picnics—popular past time is to take a picnic to one of the vineyards; many locals join a vineyards private wine club to gain year-round picnic privileges.

The most famous names in food, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, are next door to each other in a strip center at the edge of downtown. Both are decorated with pins of pumpkins now, helping to celebrate the harvest season. Grocery stores in my home town have plain old pumpkins; here in Napa there are four to six different types of pumpkins on display. The importance of the land and its products in this culture are evidenced even at the grocery store.

Check out Suzy’s first Bottle Blog as she rides the Napa Wine Train.

I went to Trader Joe’s first, thinking that Whole Foods would be fancy and over-priced.

The Trader Joe’s was much like other branches I have visited; it has a strong international wine selection with bottles racked by districts and destinations in the world. The California wines are divided by color and blend.

There are plenty of wines that cost less than $20 a bottle—not to mention the “Two-Buck Chuck”—but bottles from the more famous houses are in the $40-$60 range. I can’t imagine drinking something like that every night at dinner—think of the shoes I could buy.

If you think I’m a cheapskate, please reconsider and give me some credit for years ago having discovered the Coppola Malbec, which is hard to find, but retails for $13.99 here. Trader Joe’s has a wide range of Coppola wines, in reds and whites. Most retail for below $20 per bottle. In fact, there’s a Coppola Rosso, a red table wine, for $8 a bottle. That’s on my must-try list.

The bottle shock came when I got inside Whole Foods. Yes, it was very, very fancy. But the first thing I saw was a huge display of local wines for $5 a bottle. This is the largest and most creative Whole Foods store I have ever been to. It’s divided into two parts so that there’s ready-made foods, a coffee bar and ice cream stand in one portion of the store. Through the doors you enter the more traditional store, with a wine area so extensive that it has its own little tasting area, surrounded by fence and gate.

Learn more with the photo gallery: Vineyards of Sonoma County.

Whole Foods also has an international cast of wine bottle characters, as you would expect … and a fine collection of California labels. What’s interesting is that there is very little cross-over between what is available in the next-door-neighbor shops. You can spend hours shopping by brand, by price, by label art, by vintage or by blends.

The sparkling wines section is far stronger than at Trader Joe’s with a wide range of bubble from here, there and beyond. Whole Foods also had a lot of foodstuffs that beg you to move to the area—locally made pumpkin gelato, pumpkin spice donut holes, apple cider and mulling spices and many flavors of gimauve, French-style homemade marshmallow.

I didn’t buy a picnic because I was headed to lunch in Yountville, where a large percentage of the restaurants are famous and/or owned by famous chefs. We ate at Bouchon a French-style bistro owned by Thomas Keller and not as fancy or as expensive as his nearby French Laundry. I couldn’t resist a lamb stew, which called out for a glass of big red wine. I chose a Sinskey ($15 per glass), because I had never heard of the label.

Lunch floated past me from 1-3 p.m. and I could have walked around town or curled up in bed after all those pleasures, but instead it was time for more wine.

Find more adventures in our Culinary Travel section.

Walk-ins are welcome at most of the wineries, but things go more smoothly if you have a fixed appointment, which is especially important if you plan a tour with your tasting. Reservations can usually be made online and should be canceled in advance if your plans change. (Thank heavens for mobile phones.)

The Sinskey Vineyard is located on the Silverado Trail, between Napa and Yountville. It is one of the old-timers here, having been founded when there were about 40 vineyards, not the current 400. Dr. Robert Sinskey at first sold his grapes to a co-operative but later began to make his own wines. His son Rob, and his wife—a famous local chef and foodie, Maria—now own and operate the vineyard.

The architecture is contemporary; the tasting bar is long and a chef (Alex) works the stove and ovens just beyond to make the food pairings that go with the wine service. Alex makes many of his treats from the large organic garden that surrounds the main building at the winery. This is one of the most extensive potager in the area, complete with veggies, herbs, fruits, and 888 lavender bushes.

The tour of the property was especially interesting when my guide told me that the cave was made out of swimming pool cement. I’m used to cellars and natural caves in France, where we say cahve, so this poured concrete version was a masterpiece.

Get more info with the Ask the Locals Travel Guide: Sonoma, California.

The best was a room called the Wine Library, a tasting room with long tables decked out in Mexican vinyl, that contrast the candelabras and rows of bottles wired to the walls.

During the tasting portion, I stood at the bar and made new friends, while a flight of wines were served with different snacks foods created to complement the wines. The cheese puffs were so good that I ate mine before the wine was poured and was chastised and then given a second. Yessss!

Complementary Kisses,
SuzyKG

By Suzy Gershman for PeterGreenberg.com. Join Suzy on the road this spring on her “Born to Shop” trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from March 10-15, 2010, with an optional Bangkok extension. Guests will stay at the InterContinental Asiana and participate in “In the Know” shopping experiences filled with authentic local experiences and off-the-beaten path venues. For more information, contact Sarah at srlahey @ gmail.com.

• Suzy’s First Bottle Blog from Napa
• Suzy’s Postcard from San Francisco, California
• Suzy’s Postcard from Hanoi, Vietnam
• Suzy’s Postcard from Santa Barbara, California
• Suzy’s Roadtrip from San Antonio to San Francisco
• Suzy’s Postcard from Shanghai, China
• Suzy’s Postcard from El Paso, Texas
• Suzy’s Postcard from Paris, France
• Suzy’s Adventures in Las Vegas