Anyone who’s visited Napa Valley is likely to give you bossy suggestions of when to go and what to do there. This famously heavenly verdant squiggle of farmland north of San Francisco inspires loyalty. Napa is home to world-class wines, restaurants, yoga, farms, artists, and sublime ambiance. Green is not merely an option here: green is a way of life.

My personal Napa must-dos include 1) as many meals as possible at Ubuntu, where local organic veggies rule (click here for the “current crop” list), and where the wine list is over 70% sustainably produced — and which has a spanking-new Michelin Star (congratulations!); 2) yoga classes in-between delectables (there’s a sweet studio on the second floor of the restaurant); and, 3) a visit to the Oxbow School, where the chefs are aligned with the Slow Food movement and inspired by nearby guru Alice Waters. “No Bug Juice Served Here,” they like to say at Oxbow.

Does this look like typical school-lunch fare?

Practically Green’s friend Jeff Deasy wrote this report on Napa for his blog at AmericanFeast.com, and we’re reprinting an excerpt here with his permission.

Farm-to-table dining has been a growing trend for some time and there is no sign it will slow anytime soon. The movement to serve fresh, local, sustainably harvested food is offering truly distinctive dining experiences and helping raise awareness of the delicious alternative to heavily processed foods shipped from factories.

One meal at a good farm-to-table restaurant should convince anyone that foods are at their most flavorful and nutritious when served at their freshest. Eating seasonal foods produced without chemicals, whether grown at home or in a community garden, or purchased from a trusted local farmer, makes for better health and a cleaner environment.

The Bounty of California’s Napa Valley

The Napa Valley in California is one of America’s most rare and precious agricultural preserves. Home to the founders of America’s fine wine industry, its towns and villages also present a bounty of crops for an authentic farm-to-table dining experience regularly enjoyed by visitors and locals alike. The very word Napa stands for ‘Land of Plenty’, the original meaning given to the region by its first inhabitants, the Wappo Indians.

Many Napa Valley restaurant chefs cultivate their own orchards, vineyards and gardens teeming with rows of basil, eggplant, squash, pomegranates, figs, tomatoes and of course grapes. The freshness makes a huge taste difference, as is regularly noted by restaurant patrons and those culinary institutions dishing up annual accolades. Even those who do not have gardens of their own largely rely on the bounty of area farms and local farmers markets.

Click for the Napa Valley Destination Council’s recommendations for Agri-Eco Tourist destinations.

Here’s a list of Napa Valley restaurants with edible gardens of particular note:

• Ad Hoc

• Bouchon bistro

• Bardessono Inn

• Brix Restaurant and Gardens

• Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen

• The French Laundry

• Long Meadow Ranch, Winery & Farmstead

• Meadowood Napa Valley

• Ubuntu.

• The Carneros Inn

For more information about America’s legendary wine, food, and wellness destination, go to: The Legendary Napa Valley

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Jeff Deasy Sprinkles his Famous Salsa