Is Napa welcoming or impenetrable? Yes

One of the many observations made about the late Elizabeth Taylor was that she lived her entire life in public and yet remained completely unknown. The Napa Valley offers a similar paradox. Though it's the most familiar, most visited wine region in this country, it's also a place where much remains hidden—shrouded, if not in mystery, then by thousands of acres of Cabernet vines.

For all the Valley's seeming accessibility and its brand-name wineries opened to the public (Mondavi, Beringer), there are far more wineries than most visitors will ever see. Of the 400 or so brick-and-mortar Napa wineries, only 75 are open to the public, while another 75 are open by appointment only, with at least 100 more open only to private customers, according to Napa Valley deputy planning director, John McDowell. He described this last group as "wineries behind fences, in the hills, places most people don't even know exist."

The Napa Valley Winery Definition Ordinance is primarily responsible for today's paltry number of public tasting facilities. Passed in 1990 by the county's board of supervisors, the WDO mandated that any winery founded after 1990 could only be open by appointment. (Wineries open before 1990, with permits in place, could have public tasting rooms.) The ordinance also prevented wineries from opening hotels or restaurants or catering large parties or weddings.

Created to ensure the Valley's agricultural integrity, the law has almost as many critics as it does fans. Its defenders argue the ordinance protects against the "Disneyfication" of Napa. Critics of the ordinance argue it has hampered sales and imposed unnecessary hardship on wineries. The WDO was amended last year to allow more marketing events, but not to encourage more visits by tourists.

And yet the audience, both real and potential, is enormous. More than four million people visit Napa each year, just about all of them hoping to visit a winery (or five). Wineries that are open to all have a decided advantage. When Canadian businessman Cliff Lede decided to purchase the Yountville-based S. Anderson winery in 2002 (renaming it Cliff Lede) to produce great Bordeaux-style reds, he had no idea that the pre-WDO license that came with the property was of much value—in fact, Mr. Lede regarded it as a "negligible" part of the sale. Now he calls it a tremendous asset, and notes that it has done a great deal to help establish his brand. Of course, high scores from wine critics like Robert Parker haven't hurt either. Mr. Lede also opened a luxury inn across the road from his winery, thanks to another existing license.

The Cliff Lede winery has a particularly fortuitous location as well, right at the corner of the Silverado Trail and the Yountville Cross Road. It was one of half a dozen or so open-to-the-public wineries that I visited on my trip to Napa a couple of months ago. I'd decided to check out some wineries that were open to the public—all places that had a high profile but were not the big "brands." What kind of an experience did they offer? Was it geared to the masses or the oenophile?

Some experiences were more memorable than others, and some tasting-room workers delivered (unintentionally) memorable lines. One employee at a certain St. Helena winery told me after taking my credit card ($15 tasting fee) and handing me a glass, "It's an assembly line here." His colleague in the next room poured me some Zinfandel and declared: "More alcohol equals more fun."

I had a far better tasting room experience at Cliff Lede, where I arrived around 11 a.m. This is the best time for tasting, not just because one's senses are most acute but because the crowds are also the smallest, not to mention best behaved. By 5 p.m., people "are just looking for a place to drink, not to taste wine," said Mr. Lede, who prudently closes his doors at 4 p.m.

The Cliff Lede tasting room looks a bit like a suburban living room (it was once the family home of previous winery owners) and the soundtrack was a strictly '80s mix of Dire Straits, Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart. Music is a key component at Cliff Lede; the vineyards all have musical names like "Roxanne," "Light My Fire" and "Hotel California."

The cheerful fellow behind the bar offered free tastes of wines from Breggo Cellars, a winery that Mr. Lede purchased in Mendocino last year, as well as the Cliff Lede selections of Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2009 Cliff Lede Sauvignon Blanc, bright and lively, has always been one of my favorite Napa Sauvignons. When I asked about the 2007 Poetry, the winery's flagship Bordeaux-style blend, I got a pour of that as well, although it's usually reserved for private tastings. But the pourer noted, "We don't have that much, and at 96 points, it's going fast." (Wines are measured as often in numerical scores as case amounts in Napa.)

A few miles up the Silverado Trail, PlumpJack Winery turns out just as many high scoring wines as Cliff Lede; their Oakville Road location is slightly less visible than Cliff Lede's, but also open to the public. PlumpJack is owned by former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and by Gordon Getty of the Getty Oil fortune. PlumpJack's general manager John Conover said the public tasting room was Mr. Newsom's idea: "Before Gavin became the mayor of San Francisco, when he was a young man and didn't know much about wine, people in wine shops made him feel like he was an idiot because he didn't know anything about wine, so he wanted to make the winery accessible to everyone."

I approved of PlumpJack's populist platform and vengeance against wine snobs as well as its well-crafted 2007 PlumpJack Merlot, marked by sweet, lush fruit—a hedonistic ideal of Merlot. I also liked two wines from Cade, a winery owned by PlumpJack that's appointment-only (it was founded after 1990). The 2009 Cade Sauvignon Blanc had good weight and texture and a lively acidity, while the Cade Cuvée Cabernet was well structured and dense.

My final favorite tasting room belonged to St. Clement, a winery with the same corporate parent (Treasury Wine Estates) as the much-busier Beringer Vineyards just down the road. Set inside a Victorian house high on a hill, St. Clement seemed to attract a well-behaved crowd (perhaps the steep walk up the hill keeps the loud drinkers away). The 2007 St. Clement Merlot was attractive and pleasant; the winery's flagship Orropas, a Bordeaux-style blend, was straightforward—accessibly styled and well made.

At the end of the week I didn't feel like I'd left the Valley and entered Disneyland. I'd had three pleasant experiences and tasted some very good wines poured by knowledgeable and personable staff. Even if this is all that most people will get to see of Napa, what they'll be able to taste can be pretty good.

About Lettie Teague

Before joining The Wall Street Journal in 2010, Lettie Teague was the executive wine editor at Food & Wine magazine, where she wrote the monthly column Wine Matters. She received the James Beard Foundation's M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award in 2003 and won a 2005 James Beard Award for magazine columns. She is the author of "Educating Peter: How Anybody Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert," published by Scribner in 2007, and the illustrator and co-author of "Fear of Wine: An Introductory Guide to the Grape," published by Bantam in 1995.