Everyone goes to Napa in summer. I understand why — it's beautiful and hot and the pools are excellent — but it's also the version of the valley that's most crowded and least itself.

September is the other one. Harvest, or crush, as everyone there calls it: the six or so weeks when the fruit comes in and the entire valley is actually working. The light goes gold and low. The mornings are cool enough for a sweater and the afternoons still aren't. And the people pouring for you are tired in the specific, happy way of people in the middle of their busiest season, which makes them far more interesting to talk to than they are in July.

It's my favorite time to send anyone there. Here's how I'd do it.

Where to Stay

Auberge du Soleil is the one I recommend first and most often. It sits up on a hillside in Rutherford in an olive grove, looking down the length of the valley, and the view from the terrace at breakfast is the single best argument for the entire trip. Ask for a room with a private deck. Book dinner on the terrace for the night you arrive and don't plan anything else that evening.

Solage in Calistoga is the other direction — looser, lower, more of a compound than a hotel, with the geothermal mud and mineral pools Calistoga has been known for since long before any of this was a wine destination. If you want the trip to be about slowing down rather than tasting through a list, stay here.

Either way: stay at least three nights. Two-night Napa trips are how people end up spending the whole time in the car.

Where to Eat

The French Laundry in Yountville needs no introduction and does need a reservation you start chasing the moment the booking window opens. If you get it, go. If you don't, Bouchon is three minutes away, from the same kitchen lineage, and a plate of roast chicken and a glass of something local on that patio is not a consolation prize.

The Charter Oak in St. Helena is where I'd actually spend an evening. Big open-fire cooking, a courtyard under a very old oak, food built around the garden rather than around technique. It's the least fussy great meal in the valley.

And Gott's Roadside for lunch, at least once, without apologizing for it. A burger and a glass of rosé at a picnic table between two tastings is a genuinely correct way to spend an afternoon.

What to Taste

Book fewer than you think. Three tastings a day is a schedule; two is a trip.

Schramsberg in Calistoga for the caves — nearly two miles of them, hand-dug into the hillside in the 1870s, stacked floor to ceiling with bottles. It's cold and quiet and completely unlike any other tasting you'll do.

Inglenook in Rutherford for the history and the château, which is genuinely beautiful and takes its own past seriously.

Ashes & Diamonds in Napa proper for the opposite: mid-century architecture, a courtyard, lower-alcohol wines made by people deliberately working against the valley's house style. Go here last, when your palate is tired of big Cabernet.

During crush, ask whoever is pouring what came in that morning. You'll get a better conversation than any tasting script.

What I Pack

Napa in September is dry. Properly dry — hot afternoons, cold nights, low humidity, and a great deal of time outdoors and in the car. Skin notices by day two.

So the body care leads, which is not how I pack for most trips.

Body Butter is the non-negotiable. Water-free, so nothing in the jar is filler, and clinically proven to hydrate for up to 48 hours — which matters when you're out from nine until late and not thinking about your skin at all. Original Citrus is the classic; Detox Greens, with its eucalyptus, cardamom and amber, is the one that feels right in fall. Morning and night, neck down.

Body Butter Melt goes in the carry-on. The same formula philosophy in a balm-to-oil tube that melts on contact — TSA-compliant, so it's the one that's with you on the plane and in your bag all day for elbows, hands and shins.

Body Oil goes on damp, straight out of the shower, before the butter. Six oils, absorbs in about two minutes, and layering the two is the only thing I've found that genuinely holds through a dry-climate week.

For the face, the minimum that still works: No. 1 Serum morning and night, and Up All Night Eye Cream for the mornings after the long dinners — which, if you've planned this properly, is most of them.

Go in September

The valley in summer is a postcard. The valley at harvest is a working place that happens to be beautiful, which is a much better thing to be a guest in.

Book the room, book fewer tastings than you want to, and pack like it's dry — because it is.

XX HOPE