The Meritage Resort and Spa

Character and identity

Set on the southern edge of Napa with vineyard-covered hills rolling out behind it, The Meritage Resort and Spa leans hard into its wine country setting, from the iron gates depicting an old-fashioned wine press to the working Trinitas Cellars tasting room tucked into a 22,000 square foot Estate Cave 40 feet underground. The 467 rooms spread across two buildings in soothing neutral palettes. Dining runs from a casual café to Siena, an Italian-influenced fine-dining room, plus Crush Ultra Lounge, where a six-lane bowling alley sits alongside cobalt-blue bar tops. Two outdoor pools (one adults-only, one family) and Spa Terra round out the offer.

Who's it for

Bottom line

The defining feature here is the Estate Cave: a genuinely unusual underground complex housing both the Trinitas tasting room and Spa Terra's Florentine-styled treatment rooms, which gives the property a wine country anchor most large resorts lack. Best suited to travellers who want resort scale and amenity breadth over boutique intimacy; book a room near the adults-only pool if you're not travelling with kids.