1. Outerlands

The menu at this rustic cafe from the husband-and-wife team of David Muller and Lana Porcello is ever-changing; a recent visit turned up whole baked trout with walnut gremolata. But there’s always soup and Muller’s homemade levain bread. 4001 Judah Street; (415) 661-6140; outerlandssf.com.

2. Polly Ann Ice Cream

If you can’t decide which of the 48 daily flavors to choose, go for green tea, everyone’s favorite, or spin the wheel of destiny and leave it to fate. For the intrepid, there’s Durian, a stinky-but-sweet flavor stored in the back. 3138 Noriega Street; (415) 664-2472.

3. Tuesday Tattoo

With its calm environment and friendly staff, this is an unintimidating place to get inked in San Francisco. Jesse Tuesday (right), Sam McWilliams and Hannah Wednesday specialize in intricate custom designs; even if you’re not in the market for body art, their portfolios — open on the front counter — are worth a browse. 4025 Judah Street; (415) 242-6028; jessetuesday.com.

4. Trouble Coffee Company

The magic words at this funky coffee shop, sheathed in reclaimed wood, are ”build your own damn house.” Say it to the barista and he’ll hand over a cup of coffee, a thick slice of cinnamon toast and a Thai coconut, all for $8. 4033 Judah Street; (415) 690-9119; troublecoffee.com.

5. Carville Annex

This tiny gallery — the space is basically a hallway leading to a staircase — has a lofty mission: to spotlight emerging talent and involve the viewer in the process. In January it’ll feature inhabitable sculptures by the local artist Llewelynn Fletcher. 4037 Judah Street; carvilleannex.com; by appointment only.

6. Woodshop

Four creative young artisan-designers (all surfers) share this studio with a by-appointment shop in the front where they sell their work: handmade heirloom-quality surfboards, typography-driven graphic art, and custom wooden furniture like a walnut slab table with cast bronze legs. 3725 Noriega Street; (415) 240-5504; woodshopsf.com.

7. General Store

Mason St. Peter, an architect, and Serena Mitnik-Miller, an artist and designer, opened this shop last December, envisioning a place with a little of everything. Most of the items are made locally, including Botany Factory terrariums and Tellason denim. 4035 Judah Street; (415) 682-0600; visitgeneralstore.com.

8. Mollusk Surf Shop

This quintessential California surf shop has been a community anchor since it opened in 2005, selling silk-screened T-shirts, hoodies and hand-printed posters along with a plethora of surf gear and boards. There’s also an art gallery and a treehouse installation made from recycled wood by the artist Jay Nelson. 4500 Irving Street; (415) 564-6300; mollusksurfshop.com.

“Cannabis buyer’s clubs” began cropping up in San Francisco in the late 1990s, after Proposition 215, which passed in California in 1996, removed criminal penalties for people who grew or possessed cannabis for their own medical use. Since then, a hodgepodge of legislative enactments and judicial decisions has more or less legalized the medical use of marijuana; today Sparc is one of 24 licensed dispensaries in San Francisco. In November, residents will vote on Proposition 19, a statewide ballot initiative that could legalize marijuana for recreational use in California.

Sparc’s founder, Erich Pearson, has legally grown cannabis in Sonoma and San Francisco Counties for the past 12 years, selling it to medical dispensaries and supplying it for free to critically ill patients in hospices. (Marijuana has been shown to alleviate nausea, neuropathy, pain and insomnia, and to stimulate appetite.) Two years ago, wanting more direct contact with patients, he decided to open his own dispensary, and in the process created a new model for marijuana distribution.

Pearson enlisted Sand Studios, a local architecture firm, to design a space that would help “remove the stigma around cannabis and make people feel marijuana is normal.” After all, as he acknowledged, “if we’re asking the government and citizens to allow medical cannabis, we have to show them a model they can feel comfortable with.”

The designer Larissa Sand toured a handful of Bay Area dispensaries to gain a better understanding of the business. (“Nothing against marijuana, but fine wine is my drug of choice,” Sand said.) While she was impressed with the sense of community and professionalism among growers and retailers, she found most dispensaries lacking when it came to aesthetics. “There was nothing current,” she said. “I wanted to create something beautiful, to elevate the product and give it the proper milieu.”

To that end, Sparc is spare, modern and well lit. Vaguely bong-shaped lights made of borosilicate science glass drip from the ceiling. Steel shelving holds dozens of apothecary-style wood boxes, each containing a different strain or form of lab-tested cannabis. Along another wall, a similar rack displays baby plants for sale. The sales counter is made of local oak, with inset glass-topped drawers exhibiting buds, salves and edibles like snickerdoodle cookies and “cosmic caramels.” According to Sand, such attention to detail sends a message to regulators and members alike that “this isn’t just some backyard moonshine.”

Of all Sparc’s design moves, Pearson is proudest of the facility’s semitransparent facade — a cascading grid of steel and glass patterned loosely on marijuana’s DNA and peppered with clear aquamarine panes. It was inspired in part by the Twin Peaks Tavern, a still-extant gay bar in the Castro that is said to have been the first in America to have clear windows (rather than blacked out) when it opened in 1972. “A glass facade represents transparency, legitimacy and a sort of coming out of the closet,” Pearson said. “It lets people know we’re not afraid of anything, that there’s no shame in it. It’s therapy for a lot of people.”

DRAWINGS: 11 hours in the valley: 9 a.m.: Grab a cinnamon bun or a house-made English muffin at the Model Bakery (644 First Street, Building B, Napa; 707-259-1128; themodelbakery.com).; 10 a.m.: Ogle more than 1,000 artworks at di Rosa, one of the world’s top collections of Bay Area art (5200 Sonoma Highway, Napa; 707-226-5991; dirosaart.org). ; 1 p.m. : Linger over lunch at Tra Vigne, where the mozzarella al minuto is made to order (1050 Charter Oak Avenue, St. Helena; 707-963-4444; travignerestaurant.com).; 2:30 p.m.: Unwind with a hot stone massage at the 13,000-square-foot Mission-inspired Spa Villagio (6481 Washington Street, Yountville; 707-948-5050; villagio.com).; 4 p.m.: Nibble a macaron from Bouchon Bakery and wander Thomas Keller’s 2.5-acre garden (6528 Washington Street, Yountville; 707-944-2253; bouchonbakery.com).; 5 p.m.: Browse the furniture and gothic objets d’art at Ma(i)sonry, then sample a flight of wine in its garden (6711 Washington Street, Yountville; 707-944-0889; maisonry.com).; 8 p.m.: Dine at the new Farmstead, where everything from the olive oil to the grass-fed beef is local (738 Main Street, St. Helena; 707-963-4555; longmeadowranch.com).

Going to Town

SHOP: Start at the Oxbow Public Market (610 and 644 First Street, Napa; 707-226-6529; oxbowpublicmarket.com), a covered marketplace chockablock with specialty food stalls, including an organic ice cream shop and an outpost of the Hog Island Oyster Company. From there, meander over to Cake Plate (1000 Main Street, Suite 100, Napa; 707-226-2300; cakeplateonline.com) for creative cupcakes as well as bright and graphic women’s clothing by the likes of Trina Turk, Orla Kiely and Leifsdottir.

EAT: For lunch, choose from beer-can chicken at Bounty Hunter Wine Bar & Smokin’ BBQ (975 First Street, Napa; 707-226-3976; bountyhunterwine.com) or authentic Indian food at Neela’s (975 Clinton Street, Napa; 707-226-9988; neelasindianrestaurant.com). Come dinner, there’s the grand seven-course tasting menu at La Toque (1314 McKinstry Street, Napa; 707-257-5157; latoque.com; $135) or the vegetable restaurant and yoga studio Ubuntu, which recently earned a Michelin star (1140 Main Street, Napa; 707-251-5656; ubuntunapa.com; entrees $11 to $17).

NEXT UP: Later this summer, three high-profile restaurants will open in the $72 million Napa Riverfront complex: a contemporary Japanese dining room and shop from the ”Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto; a Tyler Florence rotisserie and wine bar featuring locally raised meat; and Fish Story, a sustainable seafood restaurant with a raw bar and a boat dock.

Barrel  Fever

FOR ART

HESS ART MUSEUM: Serious culture-trippers should make a beeline for the Hess Art Museum at the Hess Collection Winery, which displays modern and contemporary art by the likes of Andy Goldsworthy, Anselm Kiefer and Robert Motherwell in a sleek three-story gallery. 4411 Redwood Road, Napa; (707) 255-1144; hesscollection.com.

HALL RUTHERFORD: Drawn from Craig and Kathryn Hall’s personal collection, the 30 or so artworks on display at Hall Rutherford include paintings and sculptures throughout the grounds and wine caves and a bronze grapevine dripping with Swarovski crystals. 56 Auberge Road, Rutherford; (707) 967-0700; hallwines.com; by appointment.

FOR SPECTACLE

CASTELLO DI AMOROSA: The Castello di Amorosa is a 121,000-square-foot replica of a 13th-century castle, complete with chapel, torture chamber and five stone towers that took the vintner Dario Sattui nearly 14 years to build using medieval materials and construction techniques. The operation is a bit like a theme park, but the impeccably designed building itself is well worth a gawk. 4045 North St. Helena Highway, Calistoga; (707) 967-6272; castellodiamorosa.com; tours by appointment

DARIOUSH: Darioush Khaledi designed his flashy namesake winery, Darioush, to evoke a palace in Persepolis, the ancient capital of his native Iran. It’s Persia by way of Vegas: picture a travertine-clad villa, an indoor three-story waterfall and 16 uplit granite columns topped with double bullheads. 4240 Silverado Trail, Napa; (707) 257-2345; darioush.com.

FOR CREATIVE PAIRINGS

SIP SHOPPE: At Swanson Vineyards’ stylish new Sip Shoppe, secreted away in a faux circus tent down a rural road, playful pairings reign: think pinot grigio served with domestic caviar and a potato chip, and dark chocolate paired with a dessert wine served in a miniature crystal goblet. 1271 Manley Lane, Rutherford; (707) 967-3500; swansonvineyards.com.

ROBERT SINKSEY VINEYARDS: At Robert Sinskey Vineyards, ”flight attendants” help visitors pair the estate’s food-friendly reds and whites with roasted almonds, gougères and olives picked and cured on site. The $50 farm-to-table tour lets guests pick fruits and vegetables from the orchard and organic garden, sniff kaffir lime and bay leaves, and figure out which herbs go best with which wines. 6320 Silverado Trail, Napa; (707) 944-9090; robertsinskey.com.

FOR ECO-CRED

CADE WINERY: Cade Winery is striving to a Gold-LEED-certified, solar-powered winery and tasting room. The modern concrete-and-wood structure is built mostly of recycled and reclaimed materials; the 14,500-square foot wine caves are naturally ventilated; and the tasting room is insulated with denim remnants. 360 Howell Mountain Road South, Angwin; (707) 965-2746; cadewinery.com; by appointment.

QUINTESSA: At the 280-acre Quintessa winery — one of the most scenic properties in Napa — the owner and vineyard master, Valeria Huneeus, grows grapes in a sustainable, biodynamic way, farming in tune with the phases of the moon and cosmological cycles, and applying homeopathic compost teas to the vines. 1601 Silverado Trail, Rutherford; (707) 967-1601; quintessa.com; by appointment.

Doubling Up

MUD BATH: HIGH: Mosey up to the mud bar at Spa Solage for a customized blend of minerals, clay and essential oils ($98). 755 Silverado Trail, Calistoga; (707) 226-0820; solagecalistoga.com.

LOW: Lower yourself into a concrete trough for an old-fashioned, no-frills volcanic mud bath at Indian Springs ($85). 1712 Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga; (707) 942-4913; indianspringscalistoga.com.

NIBBLES: HIGH: Book a one-hour guided cheese, charcuterie and wine tasting ($50) at the new Kenzo Estate, owned by a Japanese businessman who made his fortune in the video game industry. 3200 Monticello Road, Napa; (707) 259-5408; kenzoestate.com.

LOW: Pick up some local ash-aged goat cheese and Frá Mani Toscano Salami at Sunshine Foods, and have a picnic by the boccie courts at Crane Park. 1115 Main Street, St. Helena; (707) 963-7070; sunshinefoodsmarket.com.

TOUR: HIGH: Go up in a hot-air balloon with Napa Valley Balloons for a bird’s-eye view of the valley, followed by a Champagne brunch ($240 per person). 1 California Drive, Yountville; (707) 944-0228; napavalleyballoons.com.

LOW: Rent a carbon fiber road bike from the St. Helena Cyclery and cruise the Silverado Trail ($65 for a 24-hour rental). 1156 Main Street, St. Helena; (707) 963-7736; sthelenacyclery.com.

COOKING CLASS: HIGH: high Sharpen your knife skills and cooking techniques in the five-day Basic Training Boot Camp at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone ($2,095). 2555 Main Street, St. Helena; (800) 888-7850; ciachef.edu/california.

LOW: Enroll in a whole hog butchering or salumi-making class at the new Fatted Calf charcuterie shop ($135). 644-C First Street, Napa; (707) 256-3684; fattedcalf.com.

BURGER: HIGH: Splurge on the almond-wood-grilled American Kobe beef burger topped with Gruyère and wine-stewed onions at Martini House in St. Helena ($17). 1245 Spring Street; (707) 963-2233; martinihouse.com.

LOW: Claim a picnic table at Gott’s Roadside and chow down on a classic burger topped with pickles and American cheese ($8). 933 Main Street, St. Helena; (707) 963-3486; gottsroadside.com.

Trail Mix

In an effort to protect the valley from overdevelopment, the Land Trust of Napa County has permanently preserved more than 52,000 acres of agricultural and natural land since 1976. You can take one of the organized hikes led by trust members and, once you’ve done that, trek solo through protected areas that are otherwise off-limits. (707) 261-6316; napalandtrust.org.

Jolly Ranches

1. Auberge du Soleil

Look Provence in California, with hillside stucco cottages shaded by olive trees.
Best for Hollywood types, honeymooners.
Don’t miss The three-acre sculpture garden.
Caveat Not family-friendly.
180 Rutherford Hill Road, Rutherford; (707) 963-1211; aubergedusoleil.com; doubles from $575.

2. Bardessono

Look Weathered steel, polished concrete, reclaimed wood, clean lines.
Best for Eco-minded sybarites (it’s California’s first LEED-platinum-certified hotel).
Don’t miss An in-room spa treatment (every bathroom has a fold-out massage bed).
Caveat The minimalist interiors can be sterile.
6526 Yount Street, Yountville; (707) 204-6000; bardessono.com; doubles from $350.

3. Calistoga Ranch

Look Cedar bungalows nestled in the woods, with decks and outdoor showers.
Best for Deep-pocketed nature lovers.
Don’t miss Hiking the resort’s 157 redwood-filled acres.
Caveat Bedroom and living room are seperated by an open-air deck — a drag when it’s cold or rainy.
580 Lommel Road, Calistoga; (707) 254-2800; calistogaranch.com; doubles from $550.

4. The Carneros Inn

Look Haute agricultural architecture by way of tin-roofed cottages with porches.
Best for People seeking evidence of Napa’s rural past.
Don’t miss The guests-only spa, which uses local ingredients like goat butter.
Caveat Off the beaten path — 25 minutes to St. Helena.
4048 Sonoma Highway, Napa; (707) 299-4900; thecarnerosinn.com; doubles from $450.

5. Meadowood Napa Valley

Look New England country club — a golf course, tennis courts and gable-roofed cottages — on 250 acres.
Best for Preppy families.
Don’t miss Croquet on the lawn and dinner in the Michelin-starred restaurant.
Caveat It’s spread out enough that you’ll be hitching golf-cart rides from the bell staff.
900 Meadowood Lane, St. Helena; (707) 963-3646; meadowood.com; doubles from $525.

6. Milliken Creek Inn and Spa

Look Wooden shingled summer house by the river.
Best for Romantic getaways (candlelight at turn-down, breakfast in bed).
Don’t miss Wine-and-cheese hour hosted by local winemakers.
Caveat There’s no restaurant, pool or gym.
1815 Silverado Trail, Napa; (707) 255-1197; millikencreekinn.com; doubles from $350.

7. Hotel Luca

Look Fantasy version of an Italian courtyard house.
Best for Italophiles and foodies (it’s a short walk to Yountville’s restaurant row).
Don’t miss The house-cured salumi at the hotel restaurant.
Caveat Noisy courtyard dining is in earshot of guest rooms.
6774 Washington Street, Yountville; (707) 944-8080; hotellucanapa.com; doubles from $295.

Star Search

Ad Hoc:

Claim to fame Thomas Keller’s casual joint was supposed to be temporary, but it’s still here four years later, thanks to wild acclaim. Set menus change daily.
Vibe Unpretentious: waiters in jeans, family-style dishes.
Signature dish Perfect fried chicken, served every other Monday.
6476 Washington Street, Yountville; (707) 944-2487; adhocrestaurant.com; four-course meal $49.

Bottega:

Claim to fame Italian fare by Michael Chiarello, a Food Network personality and St. Helena resident.
Vibe Buzzing: Chiarello makes the rounds, greeting locals and industry insiders by name.
Signature dish ”Green eggs & ham” (braised asparagus with pecorino budino pudding, egg and prosciutto bits).
6525 Washington Street, Yountville; (707) 945-1050; botteganapavalley.com; entrees $15 to $37.

Bouchon:

Claim to fame Keller’s original brasserie, with a Michelin star and outposts in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Vibe Festive: closely packed tables and a patio overlooking Yountville’s main drag. Popular with local chefs.
Signature dish Roasted leg of lamb with seasonal accompaniments.
6534 Washington Street; Yountville; (707) 944-8037; bouchonbistro.com; entrees $17 to $34.

Etoile at Domaine Chandon:

Claim to fame At 26, the chef Perry Hoffman is one of the youngest recipients of a Michelin star in the United States.
Vibe Insidery: Napa veterans imbibing in the lounge, visitors lingering over a four-course feast.
Signature dish Dungeness crab with shaved fennel and madeira gelée.
1 California Drive, Yountville; (888) 242-6366; chandon.com; entrees $26 to $38.

French Laundry:

Claim to fame Keller’s three-Michelin-star temple is almost impossible to book — you have to call precisely two months to the calendar day.
Vibe Reverent: an awed hush accompanies the meal of a lifetime.
Signature dish ”Oysters and pearls” — a sabayon of pearl tapioca with oysters and white caviar.
6640 Washington Street, Yountville; (707) 944-2380; frenchlaundry.com; nine-course meal $250.

Redd:

Claim to fame The first solo venture from Richard Reddington, who worked at Restaurant Daniel, Auberge du Soleil and top restaurants in France.
Vibe Hopping: power brokers, C.E.O.’s and Hollywood producers.
Signature dish Glazed pork belly with apple purée, burdock and soy caramel.
6480 Washington Street, Yountville; (707) 944-2222; reddnapavalley.com; entrees $26 to $30.

Shopping Block

Martin Showroom Erin Martin’s eclectic shop is filled with furniture and objects like tar sculptures by the Los Angeles artist Mattia Biagi and a chandelier made of rope. 1350 Main Street; (707) 967-8787; martinshowroom.com.

Woodhouse Chocolate Tracy Wood Anderson handcrafts chocolates and truffles in flavors like Thai ginger and pecan-caramel. 1367 Main Street; (707) 963-8413; woodhousechocolate.com.

The Marketplace at Greystone The Culinary Institute of America’s store (above) stocks a jaw-dropping array of cookware, books and hard-to-find ingredients. 2555 Main Street; (888) 424-2433.

Napa Valley Olive Oil Manufacturing Company This unassuming barn is famous for its extra-virgin olive oil, bottled on the premises every morning. 835 Charter Oak Avenue; (707) 963-4173.

Flats Jan Niemi’s ballet flats are handmade in Tuscany and come in colors from black to tangerine. 1219-B Main Street; (707) 967-0480.

Jan de Luz French antiques share space with milled soaps and exquisite linens at this boutique, which can monogram anything while you wait. 1219 Main Street; (707) 963-1550; jandeluz.com.

Side Note

SLEEP Opening in June, h2hotel will have 36 rooms, a solar-heated pool, a restaurant, and a bar helmed by the mixologist Scott Beattie (219 Healdsburg Avenue; 707-922-5251; h2hotel.com; doubles from $195). The minimalist Duchamp Hotel (421 Foss Street; 707-431-1300; duchamphotel.com; doubles from $350) has six cottages with Donald Judd-inspired wooden beds.

EAT Cyrus (29 North Street; 707-433-3311; cyrusrestaurant.com; tasting menu $102 to $130) is the French Laundry of Sonoma, with inventive cooking by Douglas Keane. For something low-key, check out Barndiva (231 Center Street; 707-431-0100; barndiva.com; entrees $20 to $32), where Ryan Fancher uses exclusively local ingredients.

SIP The new Prohibition Speakeasy Wine Club (340 Healdsburg Avenue; 707-473-9463; speakeasywineclub.com) — hidden behind a phone booth in the back of a wine shop — specializes in Sonoma vintages. The Medlock Ames Tasting Room and Alexander Valley Bar (6487 Alexander Valley Road; 707-431-8845; medlockames.com) also runs a farm stand.

SHOP Lime Stone (315 Healdsburg Avenue; 707-433-3080; limestonehealdsburg.com), owned by the chef Charlie Palmer and his wife, Lisa, stocks culinary gifts. Studio Barndiva (237 Center Street; 707-431-7404; studiobarndiva.com) features textiles from women’s collectives in Ethiopia and Tibet. And Arboretum (above left; 332 Healdsburg Avenue; 707-433-7033; arboretumapparel.com) has organic cotton jeans and handbags made of vintage car fabrics.

Hidden in these canyons are not only A-list movie stars like Jennifer Aniston and Mel Gibson but also more than 40 vineyards. They range from postage-stamp-size plots to serious commercial enterprises run by unlikely but dedicated gentleman farmers: wealthy entrepreneurs, developers and restaurateurs who can afford to grow grapes and make wine on some of the most expensive real estate in America.

“Malibu isn’t a farming community,” says Tim Skogstrom, who recently opened the Cornell Winery and Tasting Room nearby in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Still, wine isn’t new to the area. In the mid-1800s, Los Angeles County was the center of the California wine world; by 1870, the region’s 43 wineries were producing four million gallons of wine. Rapid urban growth, Prohibition, an epidemic of a vine-killing disease, and the rise of Napa and Sonoma in the North, however, soon wiped out the industry here. Now, a century later, wine is making a comeback, with a clutch of tasting rooms sprouting up along the canyon roads.

It is doing so with people like George Rosenthal, a movie studio magnate-turned vintner who cultivates 30 acres of vines at his hacienda-style country house. (His full-time residence is in Santa Monica.) Rosenthal was one of the first to reintroduce grapes to Malibu, planting a few acres of Bordeaux varietals in 1987. Now in his 70s, he zips through his estate on an electric golf cart, pointing out the challenges of his site, which are typical in Malibu. There are no valley vineyards here, but rather mountainous terrain with an array of soils, microclimates and sun exposures — so every block within a site requires a high level of care.

Rosenthal Estate wines, which are sold at iconic  restaurants like the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, are still not turning a profit — even 22 years in. This is not uncommon because of the high overhead (water is scarce and extremely expensive statewide, and most of the vineyards have to be worked by hand because the slopes won’t accommodate machinery. But profit isn’t the point; everyone making wine in Malibu can afford to lavish money on the project. “It’s about the passion,” Rosenthal says. “There’s a great romance to a vineyard and sharing that lifestyle with others.”

One man who may break that mold is Charles Schetter, whose Malibu Sanity label, Skogstrom predicts, will be “the first cult wine out of the area.” A large-scale land developer by day, and a longtime Burgundy collector, Schetter planted six blocks of chardonnay and pinot noir in 2005, in his backyard, which happens to have the ideal microclimate: cool coastal breezes and lots of afternoon sunshine. His obsessive personality helps, too: Schetter tends the vines himself, has attended enology classes and constantly checks the computerized weather monitor that he keeps by his bed. “If you’re going to be serious about winemaking, you need to go all the way,” he says. “Short of that, it’s a hobby —or you’re just writing the checks.”

The region is still evolving, but across the board, the quality of Malibu vintages is improving. Alex Weil, the head sommelier at the new Bouchon restaurant in Beverly Hills, has watched the region advance over the past 15 years and thinks it holds promise. “They’ve got terroir and a coastal climate, like Rhone or Burgundy, and a population with the means to keep experimenting and learning,” he says. But to get respect in the wine world, “they’ll need to produce a truly great wine, or have a great figure, a star, emerge from the pack. That will take time, no question.”

Most locals acknowledge as much. “We’re where Santa Ynez was 20 years ago,” says Tony Griffin, screenwriter and scion of the Merv Griffin entertainment empire — and since 1998, a grower of chardonnay and malbec in a half-acre backyard plot he calls the Griffin Family Vineyard. He points to his Burgundian-style chardonnay — “see, the label’s crooked because I put it on myself.” He takes a swig and adds: “The thing Malibu needs is age, to age like a good wine. In 10, 15 years, we’ll be good. Right now, we’re just baby wines.”

ESSENTIALS

The best Malibu wines are sold at Malibu Village Wines (3900 Cross Creek Road, 310-456-2924, www.malibuvillagewines.com) and Cornell Winery and Tasting Room (29975 Mulholland Highway, 818-735-3542, www.cornellwinery.com). Or piece together your own Malibu wine-tasting trail at the Rosenthal Estate Wines Tasting Room (26023 Pacific Coast Highway, 310-456-1392, www.rosenthalestatewines.com), Malibu Wines (Semler and Saddlerock’s tasting room) (31800 Mulholland Highway, 818-865-0605,www.malibuwine.com), and SIP Malibu (Cielo’s tasting room) (2598 Sierra Creek Road, 818-865-0440, www.cielofarms.com).

Six wines worth seeking out:

• 2007 Hoyt Family Vineyards Chardonnay, $26 Big and buttery, but well balanced, from one of the region’s only female wine producers.
• 2007 Malibu Vineyards Cabernet Franc, $32 Double gold medal winner at the San Francisco International Wine Competition, made by an unusually hands-on proprietor.
• 2008 Malibu Sanity Pinot Noir, $46 Malibu’s best pinot, from one of the region’s most promising boutique vineyards.

• 2008 Griffin Family Vineyard Chardonnay, $46 Bright and tropical, with great acidity.

• 2005 Rosenthal Estate Wines Block M Single-Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, $50 The latest release from one of Malibu’s wine pioneers, known for their muscular cabs.
• 2007 Semler Sauvignon Blanc, $23 Restrained, mineral-laden, Italian-style, pairs well with food.

If you close your eyes and block out the visual cues — the red ocher 18th-century buildings, the brightly colored bazaars, the monkeys scrambling maniacally over the dusty rooflines — you would still know you were in Jaipur, India. The country’s center of traditional craftsmanship has a distinctive soundtrack: from one corner of the old city come the sounds of the braziers, pounding brass disks into wide-mouth bowls; from another, a cacophony of hammers, as hundreds of men beat tiny squares of silver until they ease and spread into airy silver leaf. Over there is the metallic chipping of the marble workers, carving busts of Gandhi and Hindu goddesses in their turquoise-painted workshops. And in the distance, the sandpapery ch-ch-ch of the city’s gem polishers, who sit cross-legged at their grinders shaping precious stones for Cartier.

Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan in northwestern India, has always been a magnet for artisans. Founded in 1727 by the king Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, a mathematician and astronomer well versed in principles of architecture and civil engineering, it was the country’s benchmark for urban planning. In an effort to establish a vibrant economy and to secure bragging rights as India’s most exquisite court, Sawai Jai Singh invited the country’s top craftsmen and merchants to set up shop within the walls of his new city, offering perks like free land and guaranteed royal patronage. A grid of streets and wide, straight avenues divided the city into distinct quarters, each dedicated to a different skill, from tent making to enameling to tie-and-dye.

‘‘Sawai Jai Singh was a man of great foresight,’’ the jeweler Munnu Kasliwal told me when I visited him at the Gem Palace, the boutique that’s been in his family since 1852. As we talked, he sat in a pile of hot-pink pillows and fondled a necklace dripping with emeralds and rare rose-cut diamonds. (The style is ‘‘very popular in Aspen,’’ he confided.) Kasliwal’s ancestors, court jewelers to India’s royal families and Mughal emperors, were among those recruited at the city’s inception. Now he plies his trade just off a street where cows and hairy pigs snuffle through piles of trash — a very different scene from the Jaipur he remembers as a boy. ‘‘There were a little over 100 cars and probably about 500 scooters,’’ he said. ‘‘There was no pollution, no traffic, nothing around but farmland and beautiful private gardens.’’

Today, Jaipur has burst at the seams. Designed for 50,000 residents in 1727, the greater city is now home to 3.1 million, with the population growing an average of 4.5 percent every year. The neatly gridded streets of the old city are perpetually snarled in traffic of every imaginable conveyance — scooter, taxi, rickshaw, elephant — and outside the ancient walls sprawls a 565-square-mile modern city that swallows its rural surroundings whole.

After independence in 1947, the power and wealth of the royal courts quickly dissipated, the patronage system died out, and many formerly titled families, their fortunes much diminished, eventually turned their palaces and haveli mansions into hotels. Nowadays the stoneworkers whose forefathers carved columns for Rajasthan’s famously ornate palaces and the musicians who played at the royal court are struggling, with few exceptions, to eke out a living. The younger generation, swept up in India’s heady economic growth, has moved on to more lucrative and less labor-intensive work.

One of the people most concerned with the loss of traditional artisans in modern Jaipur is Faith Singh, a pink-cheeked Briton with a shock of bright white hair who moved to Jaipur in 1967. When she arrived, hand-block printing was on the decline, with machine-printed fabrics flooding the markets. Demand for handiwork was disappearing, and hand-block printers were mired in debt to cloth merchants. In 1971, driven by her own interest in textiles and fashion, Singh and her Jaipur-born husband, John, started Anokhi, a clothing and housewares label dedicated to fair wages, good work conditions and new ideas for a centuries-old industry. They broke with tradition in bold ways: they hired women (wage earners at the time were predominantly male), scaled and colored prints in a contemporary way and, perhaps most important, provided the printers with fabric, releasing them from their greatest financial burden. The label’s success jump-started the revival of the hand-block printing industry — one of the rare examples to date of a dying art yanked back from the brink of extinction. Now run by Singh’s son, Pritam, and his wife, Rachel, Anokhi does a brisk business in stylish, hand-printed garments and bed linens and provides steady employment for more than a thousand people.

Singh’s mission to keep Rajasthan’s cultural heritage alive has particular urgency in a state where the government means well — for example, it pays folk artists to perform in state-sponsored festivals and hires stoneworkers for conservation projects — but can’t fill the void left by the collapse of the patronage system. It has bigger things to deal with, such as the frequent and devastating droughts. ‘‘Who is going to nourish these artisans?’’ Singh said over lunch at Anokhi Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant her son opened in 2006. ‘‘The greatest challenge is that India inherited a system designed to rule rather than enable. We’ve got all this fermenting democracy, but we’ve still got a mind-set conditioned by centuries of feudalism. The prevailing attitude is: the state should provide.’’

The concept of public-private partnerships may be relatively new in India, but Faith and John have managed to create the Jaipur Virasat Foundation in conjunction with Rajasthan civic leaders. Besides leading weekly heritage walks through the back alleys of the old city, the group runs a community space that doubles as an art gallery and lecture hall. It also organizes a wide range of music, literature and cultural festivals, from small gatherings in rural villages to large-scale events like the new Rajasthan International Folk Festival. Held every October in the nearby city of Jodhpur, it has stoked global interest in Rajasthani folk music. (Mick Jagger is a patron.)

Now, as similar initiatives are taking hold throughout the region, Jaipur’s traditional arts, crafts and music have started to hum with a new vitality. In the fabric-dyeing district, I followed a stream of bright orange water to the tie-and-dye workshop of Mohammed Sabir, a potbellied man in a checkered sarong. His family has been in this business for 140 years, he told me, and though the work is painstaking and slow, he’s determined not to let their craft die. In recent years, he’s begun developing custom fabrics for top Indian designers like Rina Dhaka. ‘‘I want to take it forward, make it more contemporary,’’ he told me, hoisting into my lap armfuls of his signature striped, multihued silks.

Another day I visited the textile designer Raj Kanwar, who is using old techniques to modern effect at her workshop on the outskirts of Jaipur. A former professor at a state-run art college, Kanwar applies tie-and-dye, brass-block printing and gold embellishment to garments and invents designs based on classical Indian architectural elements: a flourish from a jali lattice window, for example, or a pattern from a floor tile. ‘‘Citizens have long had an attitude of ‘let go.’ We’ve become very dependent on the government helping everything,’’ she said. ‘‘But I felt it was people like me who have to improve things.’’ Behind her, half a dozen printers stood working at their padded tables, positioning brass blocks above silk stretched taut and then bringing their fists down with an authoritative thump.

Ayush and Geetanjali Kasliwal are also hoping to ignite an entrepreneurial spark with their company, Ayush Kasliwal Furniture Design. The husband-and-wife design team commissions pieces that put more than 1,000 artisans throughout Rajasthan to work. At their shop, Anantaya, Ayush showed me one such design, a wrapped-wire coffee table made in a remote village once known for its iron bird cages. ‘‘Being a wire worker is no longer a sustainable livelihood,’’ he explained. ‘‘Bird cages are not really in much demand anymore.’’ Ayush gave his drawings to the ironworkers with no constraints on their use; he ordered some products for his shop but also encouraged them to make and sell the items directly for their own profit. ‘‘When there is a potential skill base of hundreds of craftsmen, and at the same time it is impossible for us to support them all, why not? Very often that is all these communities need — a little impetus.’’

Later, I went with Singh to visit Anokhi’s central workshop, set among blooming frangipani and jacaranda trees. ‘‘Advertising makes people think that having Nescafé and light skin and high-rises and wearing short skirts are signs of being modern,’’ Singh said. ‘‘But in a society like ours, culture is an integral part of development.’’ Glancing anxiously at her watch, she shepherded me to a spot near the main exit so I could witness firsthand the moment that still elated her, after all these years: the daily exodus of workers going back to their lives. Sure enough, at 6 o’clock a bell tolled and almost instantaneously a pixelated, shimmering stream of women in bright saris burst forth, chattering and gleeful, accompanied by a chorus of tinkling ankle bracelets. ‘‘This is it — look at this!’’ Singh exclaimed as they disappeared down the lane on foot, scooter and motorbike. ‘‘They’re how they are, and how they were,’’ she murmured appreciatively. Within five minutes, they were gone, nothing but gauzy dust in their wake.

Essentials Jaipur, India

GETTING AROUND It’s best to hire a car and driver; V Care Tours & Travels is one reputable company (011-91-141-400-1853; carhireinrajasthan.com; about $22 per day). You can also schedule a heritage walking tour with Jaipur Virasat Foundation (by appointment only; 011-91-141-222-2140; $4 per person).

HOTELS Nana Ki Haveli Cozy bed-and-breakfast with 15 stylish rooms and delicious home-cooked dinners (an additional $7). Fateh Tiba, Moti Dongri Road; 011-91-141-261-5502; nanakihaveli.com; doubles from $44. Rambagh Palace Seventy-nine luxurious rooms in a fairy-tale Mughal palace, once home to the Maharajah of Jaipur. Bhawani Singh Road; 011-91-141-221-1919; tajhotels.com; doubles from $572. Samode Haveli Ornate 19th-century manor house, managed by the nobles of Samode, with 30 marble-floored rooms. Gangapole; 011-91-141-263-2407; samode.com; doubles from $153.

SHOPS AND MARKETS Anantaya Modern lighting and furniture made by traditional artisans throughout Rajasthan. B-6/A-1, Prithviraj Road, C-Scheme; 011-91-141-236-4863. Anokhi Woodblock-printed clothing and housewares, with a vegetarian cafe next door. (Anokhi’s hand-printing museum, in a 16th-century haveli in nearby Amber, is also worth a visit.) 2nd Floor, KK Square, C-11 Prithviraj Road, C-Scheme; 011-91-141-400-7244; anokhi.com. Bapu Bazaar One of many colorful markets in the old city, just west of Sanganeri Gate, with a good selection of textiles and jootis (pointy-toed leather shoes). The Gem Palace Exquisite jewelry and stones from the eighth-generation jeweler Munnu Kasliwal, whose clients include both Indian and Hollywood royalty. Mirza Ismail Road; 011-91-141-237-4175; gempalacejaipur.com. Ojjas Here you can buy Raj Kanwar’s gorgeous block-printed, hand-loomed silk and cotton saris, shawls and linens. 663 Hanuman Nagar Extension, Khatipura; 011-91-141-224-6916; ojjas.org.

My first glimpse of Lake County, California, was a flash of silver through the trees. Clear Lake, the second-largest freshwater lake in California, shimmered and rippled in the sharp afternoon sun. Two hours into my drive north from San Francisco, the familiar sights of Napa — winery-lined roads, faux Italianate tasting rooms, chichi shops — had given way to a more countrified scene. I passed ramshackle trailer parks with names like Holiday Harbor and Starlite Resort, where ‘‘Overniters Are Welcome,’’ and sagging family resorts painted the faded colors of a ’70s postcard.

Lake County, north of Napa Valley and east of Mendocino County, has been in a funk for decades. Until recently, anyone who knew the place associated it with R.V.’s, fishermen (the 63-square-mile lake is filled with bass) and nudists soaking in hot springs. They’re all still here, to be sure. But simmering just below the surface is a new identity: an emerging wine region in the mold of Napa and Sonoma Counties. Which, as it happens, constitutes something of a comeback. In the early 1900s, Lake County had 33 wineries and a solid winemaking reputation. But when Prohibition hit, growers yanked up their vines and replaced them with walnut and pear trees. The county didn’t see grapes again until the ’60s, when a few enterprising farmers planted vineyards to supply the growing number of wineries down valley in Napa and Sonoma.

Today Lake County is one of the fastest-growing wine regions in the state, with more than 8,500 acres of vineyards, 5 distinct appellations and 25 wineries, compared to just 4 in 2002. Sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel all thrive in the region’s volcanic soils, high elevation, hot days and cold nights. Although the bulk of Lake County’s grape crop still goes into Napa- and Sonoma-branded blends (Kendall-Jackson, Hawk Crest and Beringer all use some Lake County fruit), a handful of growers have begun producing their own wines, to wide acclaim — several have received 90 points or more from Robert Parker and have won awards at contests like the New World International Wine Competition. ‘‘For the first time since Prohibition, you’re seeing ‘Lake County’ on bottles,’’ said Matt Hughes, a 34-year-old winemaker and vice chairman of the recently established Lake County Winery Association. ‘‘Lake County is finally beginning to get some respect.’’

Just don’t call it the next Napa. ‘‘I have a lot of respect for the wines coming out of Napa, but it’s become so commercial, like a Disneyland for wine,’’ Hughes said. ‘‘They can do the dog-and-pony show better than anyone. I’d like us to stay the alternative.’’ And that alternative, at least so far, is a place where winemakers are eager to meet visitors, tasting bars are uncrowded and snob-free (‘‘If you say you like ice in your wine,’’ Hughes said, ‘‘they’ll plunk a few cubes into your glass without batting an eye’’), and restaurant meals end with a ‘‘Nice to meet you’’ to your neighboring diners. As Hughes put it, trying out the winery association’s newly minted catchphrase, it’s ‘‘wine country with altitude,’’ not attitude.

The former logging town of Upper Lake, on the county’s northernmost edge, is so unassuming that you might miss the turnoff for Main Street, wedged inconspicuously between Hi-Way Grocery and Woody’s gas station. The street has a sleepy Wild West feel, with frontier-style buildings, wooden awnings and hand-painted signs advertising sewing notions and the like. At its far end sits the white clapboard Tallman Hotel, the county’s first high-end place to stay. Built in 1896 as a stagecoach stop and hotel, the formerly derelict building was restored two years ago by Bernie and Lynne Butcher, a San Francisco couple who have been coming to the lake since the ’80s. The 17-room hotel and its adjacent Blue Wing Saloon and Cafe — a redwood-clad bistro that serves nouveau comfort food and local wines — have single-handedly revived this former ghost town, drawing weekenders from the Bay Area and the Sacramento Valley. It’s easy to see why: my room, No. 4, was stylish and comfortable, with tall ceilings, opulent wallpaper and a toile-draped bed. It also had the most elaborate bathroom I’ve seen in a while, the centerpiece being a 19th-century nickel-plated rib-cage shower with 500 spouting jets. Lynne speculated that the Tallman is ‘‘a couple years ahead of its time.’’

I discovered, with something like relief, that there wasn’t much to do in Upper Lake (nor is there reliable cellphone service). I spent a leisurely afternoon combing the town’s dusty antiques shops, sampling local vintages at the Lake County Wine Studio and, at the Butchers’ suggestion, paying a visit to Sheldon Steinberg, a local eccentric who sells antique plumbing fixtures out of an impeccably restored barn adjacent to the hotel. ‘‘Sheldon only talks about three things: restoration, plumbing parts and the L.A. Lakers,’’ Lynne had warned me beforehand, with affection. ‘‘That’s typical up here: interests tend to run very narrow and very deep.’’ Sure enough, Steinberg, who outfitted four of the Tallman’s bathrooms, waxed rhapsodic about ‘‘the finest thing ever made in this country’’ — an $18,000 fired terra-cotta china tub that he called ‘‘the Bugatti of bathtubs’’ — and showed off his collection of treasures that he’d never sell, including a baby blue toilet once installed in the castle of an Austrian baron.

The pace of Lake County is likely to pick up in the coming years, as more and more winemakers bank on the region’s rising status. At Brassfield Estate Winery, about 20 miles southeast of Upper Lake, the winemaker and co-owner Kevin Robinson showed me sketches for a new tasting room and 25 Tuscan-inspired guest villas, then led me through a 75,000-square-foot wine cave, still under construction, that will eventually house a ballroom and 8,000 aging barrels. And at Shannon Ridge Vineyards and Winery, in the mountains above the town of Clearlake Oaks, the owners, Clay and Margarita Shannon, have big plans for their thousand- acre property, including the construction of an on-site winery and a guest ranch. Clay, a longtime vineyard manager, produced his first wine under his own label in 2002. ‘‘I’m a farmer, first of all,’’ he said. ‘‘I got into wine because I thought it was time to diversify my operation, and I wanted to see if I could make wine that was any good.’’ Turns out he could: Wine Business Monthly named Shannon Ridge one of the Top 10 small brands of 2006.

For a glimpse of what else the future holds, I swung by Ceago Vinegarden, Lake County’s most ambitious project to date, on the border between the downtrodden towns of Nice and Lucerne (so named by hopeful developers in the ’20s and ’30s). Jim Fetzer, one of 11 children in the Fetzer wine family, bought the former walnut ranch in 2001 and transformed it into a 163-acre biodynamic farm (an organic approach that farms in tune with the sun, moon and seasons). Ceago blooms with stripes of lavender and rose geranium, fig and pomegranate and kiwi trees, and contains a 54-acre lakefront vineyard that’s accessible by boat, float plane and helicopter. Fetzer, a handsome man in his 50s with light blue eyes and a shock of white hair, met me in the wood-beamed, terra-cotta-tiled tasting room wearing work boots and a Façonnable plaid shirt.

As we wandered the grounds, among century-old olive trees, Fetzer described his plans for turning the property into a 50-room resort and spa — ‘‘America’s first biodynamic resort,’’ as he described it — where guests can prune grapevines, press olive oil, distill lavender and stuff cow horns with manure and silica (a typical biodynamic technique). The county unanimously approved Fetzer’s proposal — the kind of sweeping agreement practically unheard of here — and the Sierra Club has endorsed it as a model for sustainable development. Fetzer’s ultimate vision for Lake County is as a new center of California’s wine country — ‘‘the fun center,’’ he is fond of saying. He is pushing the county to create a network of ferries and water taxis that will crisscross the lake, with terminals in each of the eight major lakeside towns.

Fetzer’s enthusiasm for Lake County and his own personal investment — $12 million so far — have made him something of a local celebrity, at least judging by all the handshakes he received when we met later that night for dinner at the Blue Wing Saloon. Over mushroom ravioli, braised short ribs and a bottle of 2005 Ceago Clear Lake Cabernet Sauvignon, we caught up on the latest gossip with a pair of locals at the next table. After speculation about whether Lake County really would be, as popular legend has it, the best place in California to be in the event of a nuclear explosion, the conversation turned to the noticeable change in the kind of folks who’ve come to live in the area. ‘‘You meet some incredible people up here, especially of late, that you’d never expect to meet in Lake County, that’s for sure,’’ said our neighbor, a blues musician. We all agreed that no one, not even those pioneers who stand to benefit most from Lake County’s development, wanted things to change too fast. I was reminded of something Lynne Butcher had told me the previous day when I asked her what her hopes for the county were. Without hesitation she’d said, ‘‘To remain as real as possible as long as possible.’’

Essentials Lake County, Calif.

HOTEL Tallman Hotel 9550 Main Street, Upper Lake; (707) 275-2244; tallmanhotel.com; doubles from $149.

RESTAURANTS Blue Wing Saloon and Café California comfort food and wines from within a 30-mile radius. 9520 Main Street, Upper Lake; (707) 275-2233; entrees $12 to $24. Saw Shop Gallery Bistro Great food, giant portions, local art for sale. 3825 Main Street, Kelseyville; (707) 278-0129; entrees $18 to $30. Studebakers Coffeehouse and Deli Homey spot with gourmet sandwiches and lattes. 3990 Main Street, Kelseyville; (707) 279-8871.

WINERIES Pick up a free winery and tasting-room map from the Lake County Visitor Information Center (6110 East Highway 20, Lucerne; 707-274-5652; lakecounty.com). Brassfield Estate Winery Tasting room open to the public; tours by appointment. 10915 High Valley Road, Clearlake Oaks; (707) 998-1895; brassfieldestate.com. Ceago Vinegarden Tasting room open to the public; tours by appointment. 5115 East Highway 20, Nice; (707) 274-1462; ceago.com. Lake County Wine Studio Tasting room open to the public; no tours. 9505 Main Street, Upper Lake; (707) 275-8030. Shannon Ridge Vineyards and Winery Tasting room open to the public; tours by appointment. 12599 East Highway 20, Clearlake Oaks; (707) 998-9656; shannonridge.com. Steele Wines Tasting room open to the public; tours by appointment. 4350 Thomas Drive, Kelseyville; (707) 279-9475; steelewines.com. Wildhurst Vineyards Tasting room open to the public; no tours. 3855 Main Street, Kelseyville; (707) 279-4302; wildhurst.com.

“People always tell me, ‘Finally I feel like I’m in Australia,’ even if they’ve been in the country for weeks,” Craig Wickham said as we barreled down a red dirt road on Kangaroo Island. Wickham is tall and graceful, with tan skin and a salt-and-pepper buzz cut. He grew up on a farm on the island’s north coast and now owns the Exceptional Kangaroo Island touring company, which has been taking travelers around this island, 10 miles off the coast of southern Australia, for nearly 20 years. Beyond the dusty windshield of our Land Cruiser scrolled great arcades of silvery gum trees, tossing dappled sunlight onto the road. Every once in a while the greenery dropped away, revealing the island’s famous limestone cliffs and aquamarine water, bright flashes of color amid sedate browns and greens. “K. I. encapsulates everything people were hoping to find here in Australia,” Wickham said. “You can have a lot of people lost in the landscape and you never feel that the land is crowded.”

In many ways, Kangaroo Island does epitomize the entire continent. Only 1,700 square miles, it has most everything visitors to rural Australia dream about: hills freckled with sheep and cattle, air that smells of eucalyptus, trees clung to by the occasional koala. Secluded coves and fawn-colored beaches stud an otherwise rough and rocky coast. All the Australian mascots are here, from the island’s namesake marsupial to giant goanna lizards. And increasingly, the island also has creature comforts, from cafes serving fresh seafood to top-notch wine producers and a handful of high-end hotels-most notably the $18 million Southern Ocean Lodge, which began welcoming guests in late March to the tune of $1,700 a night.

It was late afternoon when I arrived at the one-room airport in Kingscote, the island’s biggest town (population: 1,200). The block-long main street feels like a frontier town—there’s a hardware store, pharmacy, butcher and hotel all in a row, with awnings over the sidewalks and a big sky overhead. But I didn’t linger; I was determined to make it to the lodge by dusk, when the bounteous wildlife comes out in full force and, as the guy at the rental desk stressed, my car insurance would become void until dawn. “Remember: never give a kangaroo the benefit of the doubt,” he said somewhat cryptically, handing me the keys to a dinky Hyundai.

I crept carefully toward the lodge, eyes peeled for animals, passing through charred patches of forest, reminders of the island’s near-annihilation this past December when a lightning storm sparked 12 fires in a single afternoon. (Eucalyptus trees literally explode in a fire, since their oils are almost pure hydrocarbon, and 20 percent of the island burned before the fires were contained.) I spotted an echidna—picture a short and stocky porcupine—wiggling its way into the brush, and then had to slam on the brakes for several wallabies, which are basically small kangaroos with, apparently, a death wish. (Island joke: What’s the past tense of wallaby? Wassaby.)

Southern Ocean Lodge snuck up on me. On the approach I could barely make out its silhouette: a slim wisp of a building snaking along a ridge, just visible above the dense waves of bright green mallee. Designed by the Adelaide-based architect Max Pritchard to be as environmentally sound as possible, it’s laid out to maximize sunlight, airflow and natural heat. All the water used onsite is filtered rainwater, harvested in an elaborate system of roof gutters. The property’s footprint is only one hectare, or about two and half acres; the hotel’s owners, Hayley and James Baillie, donated the surrounding 102 hectares back to the state in a heritage agreement, precluding any future development.

“We’re like a little satellite village here,” said Hayley, her eyes sparkling, her long blond hair tucked behind her ears. “We generate our own power, treat our own waste, use local products as much as we can. We want to give the impression that we’ve just floated gently down onto the landscape.” I sat with the Baillies in the lodge’s great room, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking two seas: a seemingly endless expanse of eucalyptus to the north and the pounding Southern Ocean to the southeast.

“Nothing but water until Antarctica,” said James, a 41-year-old with tousled hair and a boyish face. James used to run P&O Australian Resorts (later renamed Voyages, known for ultra-high-end properties like Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef) and now manages the couple’s two lodges. Their first, Capella Lodge, opened on Lord Howe Island in 2004; they’ll break ground in Tasmania next year.

Every object in the lodge was handpicked by the Baillies, who share a deep interest in design and a rare talent for co-decorating without killing each other. They commissioned wooden furniture and textiles from South Australian designers, and also showcase work by local artists and craftsmen in the lodge, including paintings in the 21 guest rooms and a hand-hewn limestone wall that curves through the main building, built by a sheep farmer who moonlights as a mason. The palette derives from the environment: blues, grays and whites, with natural woods. Overall the effect is stylish but organic and unfussy, a low-key backdrop to the jaw-dropping views.

Although there’s plenty to keep you occupied at the lodge—Aboriginal-inspired treatments at the spa, extravagant multicourse meals—I was grateful every time I dragged myself away for a suggested outing: seal-watching in the early morning, cocktail hour in a kangaroo habitat, stargazing at night.

One day I headed out to get a sense of the food-and-wine revolution that has taken off here. Sheep farming and wool production remains the top industry—sheep outnumber people 136 to 1—but after a collapse in the market in the early 1990s, many farmers began repurposing their land and diversifying production. Some planted vineyards; others started dairies. And in the process, artisanal production has gone from a sideline project to a big business.

Vineyards like Islander Estate and Bay of Shoals now process their own grapes and employ full-time winemakers. At Bay of Shoals, where rows of grapevines seemed to spill over the hills and into the ocean, I talked to the winemaker Ruth Pledge in the nautical-themed tasting room about the differences between her fruity 2006 and the more herbaceous 2007 sauvignon blanc, as a chorus of chickens clucked in the background.

Not far away, at Island Beehive, where honey is made by the world’s last pure strain of Ligurian bees (they were brought from Italy in the 1880s to protect their genetic integrity), it was a weekly extraction day, and the air was sweet and sultry with the scent of warm honey coaxed from wooden frames by teenage boys in rubber boots. At Island Pure, a veterinarian-turned-cheesemaker named Susan Berlin offered me a platter of sheep’s milk cheeses. “Now, these are what we’d call tasty cheeses,” she said as I speared cubes of creamy kefalotiri and manchego, nodding in agreement: tasty! (Later I learned it’s another word for sharp.) Berlin keeps more than a thousand sweet-faced sheep—she calls them “the girls”—and visitors can watch them get milked by a giant octopus of a machine. Her piercing blue eyes, halo of frizzy hair and bright white jumpsuit make her look like a beautiful mad scientist. In fact, she is: she and her husband are developing a new breed of milking sheep.

As I drove around, it became clear that the island’s growing reputation as a modern land of plenty is well deserved. Within a 40-mile radius of Island Pure are two honey factories; eucalyptus and lavender distilleries; crayfish, oyster and abalone farms; shops specializing in local southern rock lobster and King George whiting; and 28 vineyards, six with tasting rooms. Walk into any of these and you’re likely to be greeted by an infectiously enthusiastic owner. And although the island’s restaurants have yet to catch up with the produce—there are a few memorable fish-and-chip shops, and a sophisticated menu at Sorrento’s in Penneshaw—the dining room at the lodge kept me well fed.

I returned from my epicurean outing eager to see more natural wonders, so I booked a tour with Wickham, the naturalist guide. As we stood in a field among Cape Barren geese, whose squawks sound like pig grunts, he painted a picture of what this place might have looked like millions of years ago, when it was populated by nine-foot kangaroos and wombats the size of rhinoceroses. At Remarkable Rocks, he described how the gigantic rust-colored boulders perched above the ocean had been bored away by wind and sand over time.

Wickham seemed to have an uncanny ability to summon even the most reclusive creatures. At one point, he screeched the vehicle to a halt and pointed up at a barely discernible gray lump high in a eucalyptus tree. “I think we’ve got an answer to the question ‘Can you spot a koala and drive at the same time!’” Pressed for the secret to his wildlife-spotting skills, he offered matter-of-factly: “Well, let’s just say I know what these hills look like without a wallaby in them.”

That night, a dozen guests gathered in the great room of the lodge for cocktail hour, sipping Champagne and comparing notes on our adventures. The sky was a stormy shade of blue, and as we gazed out at the ocean, two dolphins leaped out of the water and traced a perfect half circle in the air. We all gasped in unison.

“Can you picture this place during the winter?” said one guest, a 50-something former advertising executive who now runs a surf-rock record label. “It’s so dramatic!” chimed his platinum-blond wife, who had swaddled herself in one of the angora throws scattered about the room. They live in Adelaide, just a half-hour flight away, and vowed to return in July, when the turbulent winter storms would make for an even grander show.

“Kangaroo!” someone else hollered, and again we all scrambled to the deck. As we stood there silently, peering into the brush, the waves crashing below, we barely noticed that it had begun drizzling. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a keen sense of place: 2,500 miles of water ahead, and all of Australia behind.

TRAVEL ESSENTIALS: Kangaroo Island, Australia

GETTING THERE Regional Express flies between Adelaide and Kingscote (regionalexpress.com.au). Or you can take a 45-minute ferry to Penneshaw from Cape Jervis, a two-hour drive from Adelaide.

HOTELS Hog Bay Hill A new inn with three stylish rooms overlooking Penneshaw Harbor. 011-61-08-8553-1394; hogbayhill.com; doubles from $290. Lifetime Private Retreats Three villas on remote Snellings Beach. 011-61-08-8559-2248; life-time.com.au; villas from $1,400, all inclusive. Southern Ocean Lodge Brand-new architectural stunner with 21 ocean-view rooms on the southwest coast. Hanson Bay; 011-61-02-9918-4355; southernoceanlodge.com.au; doubles from $1,678, all inclusive.

RESTAURANTS Fish Fish and chips and salt-and-pepper prawns, from a former chef at the Ivy in London. Takeout only. North Terrace, Penneshaw; 011-61-08-8553-1177. Marron Cafe at Andermel Marron/Two Wheeler Creek Wines Farm-to-table crayfish dishes, and wine tasting next door. Harriet Road, Central Kangaroo Island; 011-61-08-8559-4128; entrees $6.50 to $11. The Rockpool Cafe Casual spot for lunch near rock caverns and one of the island’s prettiest beaches. North Coast Road, Flinders Chase; 011-61-08-8559-2298. Sorrento’s Creative dishes spotlighting local ingredients, with a view of the sea. 49 North Terrace, Penneshaw; 011-61-08-8553-1028; entrees $11 to $25.

ACTIVITIES Plot a food-and-wine driving route of the island at goodfoodkangarooisland.com. Bay of Shoals Winery Try the sauvignon blanc. Bay of Shoals, near Kingscote; 011-61-08-8553-0289. Emu Ridge Eucalyptus/False Cape Cellar Door Wander through the eucalyptus distillery and taste False Cape’s cabernet blends. Willsons Road, MacGillivray; 011-61-08-8553-8228. Exceptional Kangaroo Island Top local outfitter for private and group nature and wildlife tours. 011-61-08-8553-9119; exceptionalkangarooisland.com. Island Beehive Don’t miss the honeycomb ice cream. 1 Acacia Drive, Kingscote; 011-61-08-8553-0080. Island Pure Visit this dairy after 3 p.m. to watch them milk the sheep. Gum Creek Road, Cygnet River; 011-61-08-8553-9110.

1. Honey Ryder: Like its namesake Bond girl, this new boutique knows what’s sexy — you’ll find draped silk jersey dresses by Jessup, reversible wool jackets and psychedelic-print tunics by Smoke and Mirrors, and rock-star-worthy gold-plated cuffs and lariats by the celebrity favorite Kimberly Faith. 564 Hayes Street; (415) 255-6858.

2. Miette Confiserie: At this picture-perfect candy store, shopgirls scoop saltwater taffy, Dutch licorice and jelly beans from apothecary jars. The pistachio macaroons and gingerbread cupcakes are irresistible; wash them down with a latte from Blue Bottle Coffee Company, in a nearby alley (315 Linden Street). 449 Octavia Boulevard; (415) 626-6221; www.miettecakes.com.

3. Lemon Twist/Peace Industry/R.A.G.: These three neighbors highlight homegrown designers: Lemon Twist sells ’60s-inspired clothes (537 Octavia Street; 415-558-9699; www.lemontwist.net); Peace Industry has Iranian felt rugs in modern designs (535 Octavia Street; 415-255-9940; www.peaceindustry.com); and the cooperative R.A.G. stocks cool clothes and accessories (541 Octavia Street; 415-621-7718; www.ragsf.com).

4. Timbuk2: Timbuk2′s ”indestructible” messenger bags grace the bony shoulders of legions of local hipsters. Unlike its online shop, the company’s sole retail location emphasizes one-of-a-kind and custom bags. Choose from around 100 fabrics to create your own or pick one of the hand-painted Artist Originals. 506 Hayes Street; (415) 252-9860; www.timbuk2.com.

5. True Sake: America’s first sake store is also its best, featuring around 200 bottles from Japanese breweries only, including rare sparkling sakes and special seasonal releases (unpasteurized nama in the spring, single-pasteurized hiyaoroshi in the fall). Time your visit to coincide with one of the owner Beau Timken’s monthly tastings. 560 Hayes Street; (415) 355-9555; www.truesake.com.

6. Alabaster: The neighborhood pioneer Nelson Bloncourt opened Alabaster a decade ago. It’s still the destination for exquisite housewares: stingray-wrapped furniture, Murano glass chandeliers, neo-Classical antiques and contemporary photography by local artists. 597 Hayes Street; (415) 558-0482; www.alabastersf.com.

7. Azalea: Hayes Valley’s trendiest shop for men and women has doubled in size — that means more covetable APC coats and sweaters, organic cotton T-shirts, James Perse basics and cult jeans (they carry about 20 brands). There’s also a nail salon in the back. 411 Hayes Street; (415) 861-9888; www.azaleasf.com.

8. M.A.C. (Modern Appealing Clothing): ”We love the Belgians,” says Chris Ospital, whose gallerylike shop displays pieces by Martin Margiela and Dries Van Noten alongside up-and-coming designers from Japan and Paris. Everything here has a story, from Josh Podoll’s coats, inspired by the art of Olafur Eliasson, to Tsumori Chisato’s embroidered silk dresses, designed for an imaginary female Mongolian warrior. 387 Grove Street; (415) 863-3011.

1. Kisan

Olivier Brémond and Thorunn Anspach stock their carefully curated emporium with Icelandic hand-knit sweaters, German titanium suitcases, French baby gear, children’s furniture from Mali and an eclectic selection of books and CDs. 7 Laugavegur; 011-354-561-6262.

2. Steinunn

After stints at Calvin Klein and Gucci, Steinunn Sigurd returned to Reykjavik and opened this atelier, where you’ll find lava-and-glass sculptures by Icelandic artists and Sigurd’s own feminine knits in the somber colors of a Nordic winter. 59 Laugavegur (second floor); 011-354-588-6649.

3. Start Art

Everything in this gallery is handmade by seven Icelandic artists, including knits by the pixieish GaGa Skorrdal. Not everyone can pull off her bulky sleeveless dresses (it helps if you’re tall, thin and Icelandic), but the wool hats embellished with wisps of tulle make great souvenirs. 12B Laugavegur; 011-354-551-2306.

4. Kronkron

An offshoot of the Kron shoe store (down the street at 48 Laugavegur), this loftlike boutique sells billowy satin dresses by the Serbian designer Roksanda Ilincic, vibrantly patterned skirts by the Japanese-British duo Eley Kishimoto and embroidered men’s long johns by Marjan Pejoski. 63B Laugavegur; 011-354-562-8388.

5. Belleville

A young couple opened this boutique last summer to reflect their interest in street culture, fashion and skateboarding. Hence: limited-edition sneakers and skateboards, Japanese toys, clothing by designers like Patrik Soderstam and Yuko Yoshitake, and obscure art and fashion magazines. 55 Laugavegur; 011-354-534-9790.

6. Liborius/Dead

The artist Jon Audarson recently opened a pair of shops to showcase his personal style. Liborius (14 Nylendugata, at Myrargata; 011-354-551-6811) has skinny handmade ties by Kendi, rockabilly jeans from April 77 and edgy pieces by Jeremy Scott and Ann Demeulemeester. Dead features Audarson’s own skull-emblazoned clothing line, a favorite of bands like Metallica and Placebo (29 Laugavegur; 011-354-551-6801).

7. The Naked Ape

The 26-year-old Sara Maria Eythorsdottir calls her shop an ”artistic playground.” That sounds just about right for a space painted with eye-popping murals where you can pick up screen-printed tees, take in paintings by local artists and hear live music from up-and-coming bands. 14 Bankastraeti (second floor); 011-354-551-1415.

8. Trilogia

The designer Saeunn Huld is a booster of fledgling local talent, selling work by recent fashion-school graduates alongside European heavyweights like Preen, Erotokritos and Alexander McQueen. She also displays emerging artists’ work and hosts regular art openings — ”a good excuse to throw a party,” she says. 7 Laugavegur; 011-354-551-1733.

Like their first project, the Ace Seattle, which has spare interiors that grew out of sleek ’90s minimalism, the larger and more ambitious Portland hotel is grounded in both the specifics of place and the zeitgeist. Rooms refer to the city’s independent spirit and cultural scene with hand-painted murals (mostly by art students and street artists), tables made of stacked old books (from Portland’s secondhand “bins” shops) and record players (borrow vinyl from the front desk). To keep the ecological footprint small, materials salvaged from the formerly run-down building — from bathtubs to signs to doorknobs — were restored and reused. New items were largely sourced from local companies. And to ensure low costs, the team embraced utilitarian items like utility clip lights mounted as reading lights above beds.

Part of the Ace philosophy is to create an egalitarian atmosphere by bringing together creative types with tight budgets and more affluent travelers willing to trade down, as it were, in exchange for cool. (The hotel’s name is inspired by the card: the highest or lowest in the deck.) Rooms with a shared bath, including three “band rooms” with bunks for touring musicians, are $85, while luxe penthouse rooms top out at just $250. Service is “limited,” meaning you’ll schlep your own bag. And that seems fine with most guests. In a world dense with slick and sterile design hotels, the Ace aims to be a counterpoint. “Perfection can be intellectually stimulating,” Calderwood says. “But things that are slightly imperfect have soul.”

Ace Hotel Portland, 1022 Southwest Stark Street; (503) 228-2277; www.acehotel.com.