Spring in Napa Valley arrives slowly, and then all at once.
The vineyards wake up first, bare canes pushing new growth as the mornings warm. Then the mustard blooms between the vine rows, a bright yellow wash across the valley floor that draws visitors from across the country before a single bottle of the new vintage is even in the barrel. It is one of the most photographed seasons in wine country, and for good reason.
But there is another side of spring in Napa Valley that fewer people know about. Just five minutes from our downtown Yountville tasting room, tucked into a quiet residential neighborhood, our Secret Garden at Hill Family Farms is waking up too. And what happens here between the first warm weeks of the year and the long days of summer is something we look forward to every single season.
What Is the Secret Garden?
Hill Family Farms is a 1.3-acre working farm that sits hidden in plain sight near our winery. It is not a decorative garden. It is a living, producing farm that we tend year-round, growing more than 120 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and culinary flowers. [1]
The farm supplies a small number of select restaurants in Yountville, kitchens where the sourcing of ingredients is taken as seriously as the cooking itself. When those chefs need something rare, something seasonal, something that does not show up on a standard produce order, they come to us.
That connection earned us a feature on Netflix’s Chef’s Table: Legends, the celebrated culinary documentary series that premiered its most recent season on April 28, 2025, marking the franchise’s 10th anniversary. [2] The episode spotlights one of the Yountville restaurants our farm supplies, giving viewers a rare look at where the ingredients behind Michelin-starred cooking actually come from.
The Secret Garden Tour gives our guests that same look, up close and in season.
Why Spring in the Garden Is Special
Every season in the garden has its own personality. Summer brings the full abundance: figs in ten varieties, fifteen types of peaches, pineapple guava blossoms you can eat straight off the branch. Fall is harvest time, the whole farm in its richest, most generous state.
Spring is different. Spring is about potential.
The garden begins to stir before most of Napa Valley’s visitor season gets fully underway. Early herbs push up from the soil. Fruit trees that spent the winter resting shake off the cold and set their first blossoms. The whole farm has that quality that gardeners know well: everything is about to happen.
What makes the spring garden particularly photogenic is the contrast. New green growth against the dark soil. Blossoms opening on bare branches. The garden is not yet full, but the evidence of what it will become by midsummer is everywhere you look.
We follow what the season gives us, and spring gives us something quieter and more considered than the abundance of summer. It is a good time to pay close attention.
Napa Valley in Spring: More Than Mustard
Mustard season in Napa Valley is well documented. From January through March, the bright yellow blooms fill the spaces between dormant vines, and the valley looks like something painted rather than photographed. It is the defining visual of Napa in winter and early spring, and it draws visitors who want to see wine country at its most elemental.
The Secret Garden sits apart from all of that. It is not a vineyard experience. It is a farm experience, and the rhythms here follow a different calendar than the vines. While the mustard is blooming in the vineyards, our gardeners are already working the soil at Hill Family Farms, preparing beds, tending early plantings, and setting the stage for the season ahead.
If you have visited Napa Valley in spring for the mustard and the scenery, the Secret Garden offers a different angle on the same season: what the land grows when the wine is still resting in barrel, and what that produce means to the tables of this valley.
As Seen on Netflix: Why Chef’s Table Came to Our Garden
Chef’s Table has been one of Netflix’s most acclaimed original documentary series since its debut on April 26, 2015. The series has earned eight Emmy nominations over its run, profiling the world’s most influential chefs and the food philosophies that define their cooking. [3]
The most recent installment, Chef’s Table: Legends, celebrates the franchise’s 10th anniversary with a four-episode season spotlighting culinary figures who have shaped how we eat today. One episode features a chef whose Yountville restaurant sources directly from Hill Family Farms, and the story of that relationship brought the production to our garden. [4]
For us, the feature was a recognition of something we have been doing quietly for years: growing unusual, hard-to-source ingredients for kitchens that care deeply about what goes on the plate. The garden has always been part of our story. Now more people know to look for it.
If you watch the episode before your visit, you will recognize the farm. If you visit before you watch, you will never look at those scenes the same way again.
What to Expect on the Secret Garden Tour
The Secret Garden Tour is a guided, seasonal experience that begins with a walk through Hill Family Farms and ends with a wine tasting. It is designed to connect what grows in the ground to what goes in the glass, and to give guests a genuine look at the agricultural side of a family-farmed Napa winery.
Along the way, you will taste things you have likely never tasted before. A peach leaf crushed between your fingers releases an amaretto-like aroma. Culinary flowers that supply restaurant kitchens are available to sample fresh. Edible varietals that do not exist in grocery supply chains grow here in season, and tasting them in the place where they grow is an experience that stays with you.
The tour wraps with a wine tasting led by one of our hosts, drawing natural connections between the farm’s flavors and the wines we produce from our Napa Valley vineyards. It is, as one guest put it, “like sitting around a friend’s table sipping wine and chatting.” [1]
Children are welcome. Closed-toe shoes are recommended for the garden terrain.
Tour Details
- Pricing: $75 per guest.
- Wine Club Members: Complimentary for up to four guests, once per year.
- Booking: Reservation required. Spots are limited and fill ahead of schedule in season.
- Start Time: 10:30am
- Location: Hill Family Farms, approximately five minutes from our downtown Yountville tasting room.
Come See the Garden Before the Rest of the Valley Arrives
Spring in Napa Valley is one of the best-kept secrets in California wine travel. The crowds of summer have not yet arrived. The valley is green and in motion. And at Hill Family Farms, the garden is doing what it does every year: quietly preparing to become something extraordinary.
We would love to show it to you. Reserve your spot on the Secret Garden Tour, and follow us on @hillfamilyestate on Instagram for seasonal updates from the garden as the year unfolds.
REFERENCES
1. Hill Family Estate — Secret Garden Tour: https://hillfamilyestate.com/visit-us/secret-garden-tour/
2. Netflix Tudum — Chef’s Table: Legends release (April 24, 2025): https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/chefs-table-legends-release-date-news
3. Wikipedia — Chef’s Table (premiere date, Emmy nominations): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef%27s_Table
4. Guest review quoted from Hill Family Estate website: https://hillfamilyestate.com/visit-us/secret-garden-tour/