It has unfortunately been over a decade since my last trip but the visit to Iron Horse was the best by far. Hopefully someone can chime it with a more recent experience.
I’ll weigh in later with specific reco’s but my first suggestion is to do no more then 3 visits a day. You will quickly wear out your group and won’t be able to have quality visits.
Where will you be staying ? If you can plan each day to minimize drive time you will have a much better time.
Day 4
Joseph Swan - fun tasting in the cellar. wines are good.
Iron Horse - great choice for sparkling wine in RRV
Chateau St Jean - big house in Sonoma Valley…if you go make sure to do the “reserve tasting”
Benziger - another big house in SV…they have a fun and informative tram tour of the property, with a great photo op at the top of Sonoma Mountain.
Yes, first question is where are you staying? Napa Valley is not so big (though it can take as much as an hour to get from the north end to south), but Sonoma county is quite large. Plus, though Sonoma and Napa are right next to each other, getting between them is a real chore (you either need to drive over the mountains, or go around the southern or norther boundaries, pretty much guaranteed to take around an hour to do any of those, depending on your start and end points).
Just taking your list and trimming out the wineries I would have less interest in visiting leaves:
Day 1
Alpha Omega
Mondavi
Opus One
Quintessa
Shafer
Day 2
Chateau Montelena - classic Cali cab, leave some time to wander the pond
Pride - beautiful property on top of Spring Mountain, leave plenty of time to drive up.
Joseph Phelps
Day 3
Ferrari-Carano (wines are fine, grounds are beautiful
Coppola (wouldn’t bother for the wines, but this is like Disneyland for winos, with a bunch of Coppola memorabilia).
Ridge - Must go
Copain - Must go, make an appt
Calluna - fabulous, a visit here is to the home and vineyard property, must have an appt, leave time to drive up into the hills
Stryker (don’t know this producer)
Holdredge - Holdredge who? Fun stop, nice wines
Day 4
Siduri
Joseph Swan
Iron Horse
Littorai
Chateau St Jean
Benziger - nice grounds and picnic area, but I’d rather go to any of the others on your list
Bedrock
Thanks all- appreciate the comments. The days have been roughly grouped by their location (very roughly ). Ive booked accomdarion accordingly: Napa, St Helena, Windsor and Santa Rosa. I agree with reducing the number of visits- so any help filtering out the maybes is much appreciated.
Liam - Alan is quite correct. Not only can it take upwards of an hour to get from the town of Napa to Calistoga; it can also take an hour to get from Cade on Howell Mountain across the Valley and up Spring Mountain Road to Pride.
You may want to consider making two or three appointments on Spring Mountain one day (Pride, Paloma, Guilliams) that are close together -minimizing travel time - and then the same for Howell Mountain another day (Cade, Outpost, Dunn & Retro). It may help to give you a sense of the personalities of each appellation.
Just got back last week from a couple of days of winery tours in Napa so still very fresh in my mind.
Can’t echo the previous posters comments regarding cutting back to two or three visits a day. Also do you have dinners planned? Leaving enough time after your last winery appointment to get back change, shower, relax before leaving for dinner is important.
Don’t forget to leave time in for lunch. We did picnics as well as running by Taylors (Gotts) once as well. Our favorite picnic spot is Pride. Stop by Dean & Deluca in St. Helena on the way up. Unless you will be spitting the wine you will need some food in you.
Remember that this is not about doing as many wineries as possible. Focus on quality experiences versus quantity.
On day 4, if you go to Iron Horse, you may as well head up a couple of miles to Forestville and check out Wine Guerilla. Cool storefront in “downtown” pouring Zin made in small quantities. A friendly and relatively intimate tasting of a bunch of different vineyards.
Iron Horse is worth the drive for the view alone, but the sparklers are nice.
Liam, I’m not an expert, but I’ve definitely loved my experiences in that area in recent years. One big picture consideration: You may consider staying in Healdsburg one night instead of Windsor or Santa Rosa. Nothing against those places, but Healdsburg is charming as all hell AND a prime jumping off point for the Dry Creek Valley or RRV. Sorry, don’t mean to complicate things.
Regardless, you’re on vacation in wine country in November. You’re going to have a great time.
you may need to reshuffle the order/days a bit and would not make more than 4 appointments per day;
10, 11;30, 2 and 4
because you will want to absorb the area around these wineries and allow time for surprise stops/overage.
Some of these wineries you are going more for the americanna experience/history, than the wines,
but I think that is good/ok.
Day 1
Mondavi
Opus One
Quintessa
Shafer
Day 2
Chateau Montelena
Beringer
Pride
Joseph Phelps
Day 3
Ridge (I would go to Montebello instead at the beginning or ending of trip)
Copain
Day 4
Joseph Swan
Littorai
Bedrock
I would add in Sojourn (Sonoma Square) and eat at Girl and The Fig.
Domaine Carneros, if the weather is good. Beautiful outdoor setting with vineyards around and on the path to Sonoma.
More Healdsburg/Westside Road…Williams Selyem, Arista(see if you can do their A List Food and Wine Pairing), Rochioli, Lynmar.
Water. Lots of bottled water. Stay hydrated and plan lunch, snacks between winery visits or you will miss the last stop because one or more of you entourage are done for the day.
Preston is a great stop in the Dry Creek Valley.
Day 4, before/after Littorai, maybe check out Wind Gap at the Barlow in Sebastopol. The wine is amazing and they’ve got a smart little space there.
If you are near Sonoma Square at some point, I recommend taking a quick detour into Glen Ellen. The Fig Cafe is a quaint lunch spot and Talisman pours sensational Pinots just across the street.
This is good advice, 4-5 tastings and a lunch, is a LOT and they will all start to blur together and your taste buds will be hammered. Most tasting rooms don’t open until 10am and traffic is interesting up there sometimes. We always hire a limo for a least one day. it makes live easier. I we do 3 max a day even with a limo, as rushing from one place to the next takes a lot of fun out of it.
Places I would skip, Opus One, Benzinger, Phelps, Mondavi and Coppola.
Fun stop, nice wines
). Ive booked accomdarion accordingly: Napa, St Helena, Windsor and Santa Rosa. I agree with reducing the number of visits- so any help filtering out the maybes is much appreciated.