Napa Valley Hot-Air Balloon
— — the half-hour before the valley wakes.
Not only on a wall.
“Balloons lift from the floor of Napa Valley before the sun has cleared the Vaca Mountains. The launch is in the dark. Chase trucks line a vineyard edge in Yountville or Calistoga, propane roars into the envelope, the basket wakes up sideways and then stands. Half an hour in, the air is so still you can hear vines rustling underneath. The pilot cuts the burner and the valley goes quiet. There is a tradition of breakfast and champagne when the basket sets down, somewhere a chase truck can find.
Napa Valley Hot-Air Balloon, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Napa Valley sits roughly 50 miles north of San Francisco Bay, a 30-mile-long agricultural valley running between the Mayacamas Range to the west and the Vaca Range to the east. In 1981 it became the first federally designated American Viticultural Area in California, and the county today holds more than 400 wineries across the communities of Napa, Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford, St. Helena, and Calistoga. Hot-air balloon flights typically launch from vineyard fields near Yountville or Calistoga at dawn and drift on the valley's gentle thermals before landing wherever the wind decides. Commercial operators have flown the valley since the late 1970s, making Napa one of the longest-running balloon corridors in the western United States.
Balloon flights launch in the half-hour before sunrise because that is when the valley's air is most stable. As the morning sun crosses the Vaca Range, it warms the eastern slopes first, and the temperature gradient that follows will shift the breeze and close the launch window by mid-morning. Pilots inflate the envelopes in the dark, lift off at first light, and ride the calm air for forty-five to sixty minutes at altitudes ranging from 500 to 2,000 feet. The burner runs in short bursts, and in between, the only sound is the rustle of vine rows passing below. Most flights touch down between 7:30 and 8:30, when a sparkling-wine breakfast follows back at the operator's base.
Several operators fly the valley most mornings, weather permitting, including Napa Valley Aloft from the Vintage Estate in Yountville, Calistoga Balloons from the northern end of the valley, and Balloons Above the Valley out of Yountville. A standard shared-basket flight runs roughly $250 to $300 per person and includes the pre-dawn pickup, the flight itself, and a sit-down breakfast with sparkling wine on landing. Flights operate most heavily from April through October, since winter mornings are often grounded by Pacific fog or rain. Booking ahead is necessary during harvest, which usually runs August through October. Children under six are typically not flown, and the whole morning, ground to glass, runs about four hours.