Wineries in Napa, CA

Honestly it's hard to go wrong; you may want to avoid the biggest wineries but I wouldn't stress. My big suggestion is to include some sparkling wine and/or port places on your tour, just to mix it up. Domaine Chandon is affordable but high quality, and Prager makes great port.

CADE has great views. Maisonry is an awesome tasting room. Frog's Leap has pretty grounds. Mumm is commercial but a nice way to end the day with bubbly.

OPUS ONE

Are you looking for a particular type of wine (white, red, pink, sparkling, port) or just willing to drink whatever's being served? Be prepared to spend approximately $20 per winery for tastings. The city of Napa has a [discount card for $30](http://donapa.com/wine-tasting-card/) that lets you taste wines within tasting rooms in that city (not in the wineries themselves). The [Napa Valley Welcome Center](https://www.visitnapavalley.com) should have a bunch of different 2-for-1 tasting cards. Have a great time!

i love hess winery...it's outside of the typical napa, and you can stop at a few surrounding ones too. Hess has a wonderful art collection- lots of sculpture and andy goldsworthy. http://www.hesscollection.com/

Beringer has the best tour and nice grounds (and the Library tasting room has good stuff) Mondavi has a nice tour, is good for picknicking, and has nice wine. Hess has a nice art collection. Phelps has great wines and a terrific view. Chandon has a really nice, overlooked restaurant. Caymus / Opus One / Napa Valley Wine Co are good destinations if you want to try collector wines.

Sterling is cool for the experience. Pay the extra $20 for the Silver Experience, or whatever it's called. Worth it. Big white building on a hill in the center of the valley with great views. Ballentine is a bomb boutique winery that doesn't have a big tour or anything, but their Old Vine Zinfandel blows my mind. Oh and the Malvasia Bianca Fizzante is legit too. Pride is another one with a great tour, but it's a little more up on top of the hill, on the border with Sonoma County.

This isn't the best winery, but Heitz cellars had my favorite chard of the day and it's a free tasting.

V. Sattui is nice because there's a big picnic area and great deli. The wine's pretty good, but the scenery is great.

I like to visit V. Sattui and Mondavi for the scenery, if I have people visiting; Mondavi has an awesome tour as well, and the wines are pretty good as well. V. Sattui is also kind of along the main road, and you can just cruise down it and check out the zillion wineries depending on what strikes your fancy. My personal favourite though, is Mumm. It's on the Silverado Trail which is a lovely drive, and it's not usually as jam-packed with people as V. Sattui or Mondavi are. If you're into champagne/sparkling wines, you *have* to go there. It's got a good collection and the grounds are lovely.

You may want to consider Sonoma as well as Napa.

Frogs leap is one of my favorites for an affordable and very enjoyable visit.

HESS HESS HESS HESS!!! Fantastic wines and there's also an art gallery that's pretty darned cool. https://www.hesscollection.com/

I'd recommend making a day out of Howell Mountain. If you both enjoy Zin and Cabs, call Black Sears and try and get an appointment; it doesn't get any more off the beaten path than that. My wife and I tasted there in 2014 and got a tour of the property and tasted on a rock bench in the woods overlooking their vineyard. Chris is an awesome individual. Head over to Outpost after that (appt reqd) and taste on their cabs, zin, grenache, and petite sirah. Beautiful views overlooking the valley and great grounds. From Outpost, there are so many gems you can try. Cliff Lede, Ladera, Chappellet I believe is at the bottom of the mountain near the Silverado Trail, O'Shaugnessy, Viader, and the list goes on-and-on. Mountain fruit, for my money, can't be beat and really excelled in the 2011 vintage due to an Indian summer up on the mountain.

Have you begun planning your meals yet? Two of our favorite, greasy spoon restaurants for breakfast are Buttercream Bakery and Jefferson Street Cafe. Jefferson Street Cafe is a legit whole in the wall behind a gas station but their breakfast burrito, eggs with beans, and all of that are incredibly good and ridiculously inexpensive.

Prager Winery and Port Works in St. Helena is a great spot just off Rte128. They have delicious ports. http://www.pragerport.com/

It's not Napa but Fog Crest in Sebastopol is pretty good. And when I went there in 2016 they were able to give me a list of places they personally enjoyed as a local that tended to be less touristy. Also Pelligrini in the Santa Rosa is really nice. I booked a lunch in the vineyard thing and they gave us a tour of the facility and Mr. Pelligrini was just on the porch smoking a pipe getting ready for a day of work. It was pretty cool. It was fairly inexpensive too if I remember correctly. Pelligrini is still a small vineyard so they might be by appointment only, but definitely worth it. Both of these places are still relatively close to Napa, maybe 20-30 minutes or so.

From Just an aesthetic point of view, Castle di Amorosa is worth going to if you're in Napa. My wife and I also enjoyed the wine so much so that we joined the wine club. The people who worked there at the time were lovely and couldn't do enough to make sure you were happy with the whole experience (That was over 5 years ago, but I am sure it holds true still). Just my opinion, but if we ever get back to Napa, I will absolutely make sure we get back there again. Enjoy your trip!

Goosecross Regusci Black Stallion Alpha and Omega Del Dotto St Claire Brown

> I had a friend just go out and he threw out a few suggestions from his trip, none of which I am familiar with: Promontory, Taylor Family, Realm & Farella are winners that i should hit up. I could be wrong, but unless you're vetted to drop several grand at some of those places, it's gonna be hard to just call them up and visit, or if you can, it's gonna be a couple hundred a person tasting fee. If that's in your wheelhouse of budget, and you like rich opulent Cabernet...those are excellent choices. So many great wineries making that style of Cab in Napa, you really can't go wrong with any of them: Spottswoode, Colgin, Ovid, Brand, Greer, Macdonald, Vine Hill Ranch, Continuum, Araujo/eisele, Accendo, Arkenstone, Nine Suns, progeny/o'shaugnessy, diamond creek, dalle valla, hundred acre, shafer, lokoya, harbison, maybach, memento mori, futo, screagle, Dana, bryant family, etc etc etc. There are also interesting wineries 'off the beaten path' that make wines not in that style

If you like cab, you have to visit chimney rock. You’ll need to make reservations ahead of time. It is on the pricier side at $50/person. Wine is good :) people are also friendly.

Just Napa or Sonoma as well? Where else have you visited? I just got back so have some thoughts...

Terra Valentine, it is in spring mtn so a bit further north but great wine and amazing views

Château Montelena, it put California on the map.

Hendry. Small, rustic, and an excellent producer of Zins as well as other varietals.

Have always enjoyed Rombauer Vineyards off Silverado Trail. Great wine and the grounds are beautiful.

https://www.ttbonline.gov/colasonline/publicSearchColasBasicProcess.do?action=search The wine you bought was submitted out of The Ranch winery - Rutherford Wine Studios. The most recent entry out of CA is from Valley of the Moon winery/ West Cost Wine Partners. Maybe contact them.