Solage Calistoga

Hotel description

It’s incredible that in 21st-century California a wine-country resort is still half-expected to look like something from 18th-century Tuscany. So it’s to Auberge Resorts’ credit that their newest creation, Solage Calistoga, calls on that most Californian of idioms: the bungalow. For though the word itself may come from India, there’s no clearer expression of Napa Valley’s rustic agricultural history than a home-grown architectural style.

Of course “rustic” doesn’t really capture the appeal of these bungalows — Solage is about as urbane as the wine country gets, with interiors that owe more to city loft apartments than farm houses. Space is plentiful, creature comforts legion, and it’s all guilt-free — this is one of the greenest hotels in California, from the renewable and reclaimed woods, to the recycling and conservation initiatives, to the cuisine itself, largely local, organic and sustainable.

The enormous Solage spa goes local too, though perhaps less glamorously so, using volcanic mud from Calistoga’s geothermic nether reaches. Great food, great wine, and scenery to match any other place you care to name — there’s little to argue with, and given the close proximity to San Francisco there’s virtually no excuse for staying away.