Love was in the air Friday night at Festival del Sole.

If you’ve ever wanted to hear all 17 of Beethoven’s string quartets performed in Napa Valley wineries, the 13th season of Music in the Vineyards offers the perfect opportunity.

Festival del Sole featured more than music, art and food in its second season.

The Wine Country Film Festival continues this week in Napa opening with a culinary doubleheader at Frazier Winery Thursday night.

The 27th Napa Valley Writers’ Conference begins this weekend and continues through Aug. 2.

The art of song became part of the rich musical mix at this year’s Festival del Sole, and never more so than at Saturday afternoon’s concert at the Napa Valley Opera House starring soprano Danielle de Niese.

Ashley Wheater, ballet master and assistant to the artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, will be on hand into introduce this week’s Friday Night Flick at Copia.

As if audiences hadn’t been thoroughly challenged and dazzled a-plenty by a week of exceptional concerts, Festival del Sole served up a double-barreled musical blast at Yountville’s Lincoln Theater Sunday night.

The Napa Valley College Glade was transformed this weekend into the Forest of Ardenne. That is, the Forest of Ardenne complete with lawn chairs and the crinkling of baguette wrappers.

Artists from around the valley gathered last Friday to celebrate the opening of the new Artists of the Valley gallery on First Street in Napa.

The athletic ballet displayed by hotshot Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti and incomparable American violinist Joshua Bell set the tone for Wednesday’s exceptional Festival del Sole concert at Yountville’s Lincoln Theater.

It’s not so much what they do, it’s how they do it. That’s the mantra for a Los Lobos concert.

Playing Franz Liszt’s “Transcendental Etudes” is no picnic.

From Register staff

Ron Debelak, a resident at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, sent in this photo of his “June pumpkin, with four more months to go.”

More than many foods, fish really benefits from the hot and fast cooking of the grill.

You may have noticed, perusing the garden-fresh produce at the farmers markets, how much of it comes from the bountiful Yolo County, just over the hill from Napa.

Besides staffing booths at farmers’ markets, conducting free garden workshops, producing a cable television show, writing newspaper articles, and staffing a help desk to answer garden problems, Napa County Master Gardeners care for two small demonstration gardens.

Have you recently observed your vegetable and flower seedlings being devoured overnight?

Dormant season pruning is a traditional tree and garden chore, and it certainly has a rightful place in the annual cycle of garden activities.

A backyard swimming pool can be an inviting oasis, particularly on a hot, sultry day. No surprise that swimming pools are one of the most popular sources of outdoor home entertainment.

Nickname: Smokey Bear

Nickname: Toby T.

America’s most popular winery — at least by one measure — is not in the Napa Valley. Nor is it in Sonoma County or even Monterey. It is in Buncombe County, N.C.

I was eating dinner with several wine writers from around the country, and the unanimous choice for the first bottle of wine was a dry rosé from Spain.

Longtime wine drinkers remember what passed in the U.S. as rosé wines in the 1960s and 1970s — Mateus and Lancers, imports which were somewhat sweet and slightly sparkling pink wines.

Although Americans probably associate Italy more with red wines than any other — at least until pinot grigio became so popular — many regions of Italy produced mostly whites, and at least two traditionally made and drank a lot of rosé.

The silver anniversary edition of the Home Winemakers Classic was not only well attended, it also featured a number of outstanding wines from dedicated northern California garagistas.

The wine folks in Sonoma County sure know how to throw a party.

Gary Galleron has been appointed full-time winemaker for Bourassa Vineyards in Napa Valley. Galleron has been a consulting winemaker for Bourassa since 2004 and has worked in the past for such wineries as Grgich Hills, Whitehall Lane, Grace Family, Hartwell, Vineyard 29 and Seavey.

With twice the amount of property required by county regulations, Dr. Marc Cohen thought building a winery on Howell Mountain would be a snap.