Winery Tour Stops
California’s Wine Country covers most of the state, and many good wines are produced beyond the distance that we can reach in a one day tour. No two tours are exactly alike, and special events, winery hours, and other considerations force the driver to choose from a list of candidates for every trip. We have come up with a list of Wineries that are within a reasonable distance, do a good presentation, are nice and friendly, and have other amenities, such as nice scenery, interesting history, or good food. Am I forgetting something? Oh, and good wine! We are always updating our list, as new ones open, or choke, others close. After thousands of trips, here are the likely candidates for upcoming California Wine Country Tours. We won’t come close to stopping at all of them on one tour, but they give you an idea of where we might go.
View a List of California Wineries that are possible stops on our various tours.
The Golden Gate Bridge
During our Wine Country Tours we cross one of the most beautiful bridges in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge. On some of our tours, we go up into the headlands to get one of the most spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the City of San Francisco that makes for great photos.
Napa Valley
Napa Valley was a few years behind its neighbor Sonoma Valley (see Sonoma history) in the 1850’s and when the tourists started coming into the Wine Country in large numbers, they were in Sonoma, largely ignoring Napa Valley, which was just a place with a lot of vines. Both valleys became quiet and relatively empty from 1906 until the 1970’s. The roles became reversed and Napa Valley became a household name (in households where they read Wine Spectator, anyway) after a 1976 Bicentennial Contest between California and French wines, where the upstart Americans shocked everyone by winning 2 First Place ribbons – both from Napa Valley - and 14 out of the top 20 places. That notoriety jump-started a successful promotional campaign that soon overshadowed all other “neighborhoods” in the American wine business, and now the word “Napa” is synonymous with “Wine” in many people’s minds. It’s not that it is NOT true, but it is most certainly not the whole truth about wine in America, or specifically California. Some of the facts are that it is farther away from San Francisco and time spent on the road is time NOT spent tasting wine, the average price of a bottle or a tasting flight is higher, and the average nose behind the counter is also pointed a little higher, if you get my drift. Some of the most famous names in American Wine have their home addresses in the towns along the Napa Valley Highway, and it’s still a great place to go, but there are very few complimentary tasting rooms in Napa Valley, and when pressed for time, Sonoma is closer to San Francisco, and has lots of great wine to taste.
Napa Valley Wine Tours
