Calistoga

Calistoga's food trade began as an adjunct to its hot springs. Sam Brannan, the gold-rush millionaire, assembled roughly 2,000 acres of hot-springs land, completed the Calistoga Hot Springs Hotel in 1860, and opened the resort to San Francisco's affluent in 1862; he was instrumental in the Napa Valley Railroad and its 1868 depot, reported as the second-oldest in California, which carried spa patrons north and seeded the town's hospitality economy. That depot reopened in 2023 under Jean-Charles Boisset as a grocery, restaurant, and distillery complex.

The wine record runs parallel. Alfred L. Tubbs bought land here in 1882 and established the A. L. Tubbs Winery by 1888; the estate, later Chateau Montelena, won the 1976 Judgment of Paris under winemaker Miljenko "Mike" Grgich and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Beer arrived through the Calistoga Inn, a hotel receiving guests since 1887, which in 1987 launched the Napa Valley Brewing Company — the first commercial brewing in Napa County since the end of Prohibition in 1933 — using a seven-barrel brewhouse in the inn's water tower designed by Michael Lewis of UC Davis, and long operated by Rosie and Michael Dunsford. Contemporary fine dining centers on Auro, where Rogelio Garcia builds seasonal tasting menus.