I’ve often said that a restaurant experience is like a 3 legged stool.

One leg represents FOOD. One leg stands for ATMOSPHERE. One leg for SERVICE. If any one of these three elements is missing the whole experience falls over…just like a 3 legged stool.

The FOOD Leg. If the food is not good, we won’t recommend it and you’ll be saved. That’s IF you listen to us. But Napa has earned the reputation as being the Food and Wine Capital of America. We have some wonderful, inventive and delicious food, some within walking distance of the Beazley House. You can dine on dishes prepared with the freshest of ingredients, in some cases right from the restaurant’s own garden. We won’t send you to “average”. After all, it’s not like it’s your North Dakota’s cousins’ cuisine that you HAD to eat (once).

The importance of this “edible gardens” movement is illustrated at Julia’s Kitchen in Copia. Out front are over three and a half ACRES of organically grown and harvested gardens. The new 25 Degrees Brix has completely torn off their west facing walls, replaced them with floor to (tall) ceiling windows and re-arranged their whole dining room to take in the delicious views of their organic gardens and vineyards. Brix is the perfect representation of Napa Valley Atmosphere and Two legs firmly planted on the dinning stool! Unfortunately for Brix the third leg (Service) is still a bit wobbly. Stay tuned.

So which restaurants we recommend are SOLID examples of our little culinary stool? Our guests tell us: Allegria in a beautiful, circa 1900’s bank, complete with vault; Celadon AND Coles Chop House; Uva Trattoria Italiana, great food and jazz to match; Julia’s Kitchen good now, great soon; Angele, right on the Napa river. The Culinary Institute of America Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant’s Terrace, the only thing better than the view might be the food.

You can count on the Beazley House to book reservations, give you a written introduction and specific directions to some of the best “seats’ in Napa Valley.

When we’re talking about Beazley House ccokies TWO is a start, but alas not enough.

The same thing goes for nights for your visit here.

We can fill your dance card for SEVEN nights in this paradise of food and wine known as the Napa/Sonoma Wine Country. Two nights is more like a tease.

Most of us remember quite painfully the experience of being teased. Either we were tortured by an older (or younger) sibling. Or perhaps the experience burned in our brains came later in life, say, high school. Maybe she wore a red dress or a football jersey…but I digress.

Two nights at the Beazley House, while a respite from routine, is definitely NOT ENOUGH. Sure, we can smooth the edges of that nasty Bay Area traffic with a fine Cabernet or Chardonnay at our Friday night wine tasting. We can fortify you until dinner with some nice nibbles which accompany our wine tasting. And, of course, you’ll be treated like an old friend at the fine Napa restaurant we send you to.

Yes, you’ll awaken refreshed and rejuvenated the next morning, your senses alive with the smell of baking bread and brewing coffee. Then your day will be laid our before you like an invitation to play doctor.

It’s about this time that it dawns on you that TWO days just isn’t enough. Your mind will race through plausible excuses for cancelling appointments and you may even practice a hoarse call to the boss.

We’ll play along. We could forge notes from your mother saying how sick (of work) you are. We can help come up with more excuses to stay than reasons to return to your tired routine.

Life beckons. And, after all, what are new best friends for?

We will even offer a nice discount for that third day.

Look! You only have so much time. And most of you spend precious little of it on yourselves.

So, when you visit us at the Beazley House we respect this “limitation” you’ve imposed on us by sending you to WINERIES, not just places you’ll sip and slip.

You may have heard of some of our favorites. You might not have. But we guarantee you’ll remember ‘em after we send you there.

Take Beringer Vineyards for example. Most people simply show up at the visitor’s center, duck into a cave and sip two or three wines. Beazley House guests have an appointment with Dean who will take you on an extensive tour of the caves hand carved by Chinese laborers over 124years ago. You will then retire to the private tasting room in the Rhine House for an elegant and educational foods and wine pairing. You’ll sip vintage and reserve wines only available on this special tour. You’ll be hosted, not herded.

Speaking of caves…how about an entire winery in a cave?! A cave system so huge it has its own ballroom. Bill and Leticia Jarvis created this underground master piece and show it off just two times daily. On their Vintage tour you’ll sip 6 wines and on the Bacchus tour 4 wines. You’ll be sitting down, of course, in their private tasting room and will be sampling cheeses and crackers. This winery has gone sooo underground you can’t tour without an arranged appointment from us.

Stick with the Beazleys and we’ll introduce you to a wine thief! At Del Dotto Caves Historic Winery you’ll sip wines directly from their barrels. Candle light flickers as your guide gently glides the glass neck of the aptly named wine thief into barrel after unique barrel. You are given a liquid education of the subtle nuances supplied by various degrees of toasting the barrels receive. Who knew burning oak could make wine taste so good!?

After Del Dotto you’ll be glad you are staying so close with innkeepers who believe in afternoon naptime.

Live in the Bay Area?

Think of the Beazley House as your portal to the pleasures of Europe, right in your own “backyard”!

In LESS time than it would take you to drive to SFO or Oakland International airports, get through security and board a flight to Europe, you can be sipping a delicious, vintage wine at a Tuscan castle, a French chateaux or a cool wine cave in NAPA VALLEY.

And if you stay with us for at least two days, Sunday through Thursdays, WE will rebate $50 toward your tank of gas.

Napa Valley is more like Europe than America. No sprawling cities surrounded by suburbia. Here the towns and “hamlets” are surrounded by vineyards. Ours is one of the first “Ag(ricultural) preserves in the U.S. This means that the land is tax-valued not just at its “best and highest use” (read housing tracts), but as agricultural land. And the people of Napa County have voted over and over again to keep it agricultural.

The result spreads before you as you enter the Valley from the East (I80 via Cordelia) or West (Highway 12/121 from 101 north) in the Carneros.

It is in the lush vineyards of the Carneros (which straddles both Sonoma & Napa Counties) you will encounter your first glimpses of “Nuevo Europe”: Viansa, a Tuscan Hill villa overlooking a wetlands preserve and vineyards; Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves and the French Chateau of Domaine Carneros.

Completed in 1989, the classic 18th century château-style building was architecturally inspired by the historic Château de la Marquetterie owned by principal founder, Champagne Taittinger. From its broad you view vineyards and rolling hills.

Napa Valley is home to over 340 wineries and how a genuine “Tuscan castle” complete with dungeons and (painted) dragons. Castello di Amorosa was built stone by hand cut stone over 17 years by Daryl Sattui. A third generation vintner, Sattui brought over Italian craftsmen who created a castle complete with three stories deep wine vaults, a drawbridge and towers. AND it meets California earthquake standards!!

Just down Highway 29 sits Beringer Vineyards and its Rhine House and caves. The mansion was built by prosperous German immigrant Frederick Beringer in the 1880’s. Said to remind him of his ancestral home on the Rhine, it is resplendent in stained glass and carved oak paneling. Behind are the wine caves carved out of the mountain by Chinese laborers. Here the air is always a cool mid 50’s and heavy with the scent of aging wine.

These are just a FEW of the MANY Napa Valley destinations to which we have a very special entre’. When you stay at the Beazley House, our friends are YOUR friends. And after 27 years, we have some good friends indeed!