A Travel Guide for Wine Tasting in Napa Valley, CA
- bochelley
- Oct 14, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 22, 2024
Napa Valley Wine Tasting Travel Guide
Here is a travel guide from a trip in October 2024, when we visited the wine country in Napa Valley. It was a bit overwhelming to plan a wine tasting trip to Napa because it was hard to know which wineries to pick and then make reservations. Also, it was difficult to determine which areas we wanted to visit, Napa, Sonoma, the Silverado Trail? We decided to buy the PWP (Priority Wine Pass),a 1 year wine pass is $69.00. So Groupon had it for $44.85 at the time, We did buy it on Groupon. PWP has an online coordinator to help plan the surrounding wineries that participate. Some of the wineries listed on PWP had 2 for 1 tastings that worked great for the two of us.
Here are some logistics: we stayed in South Napa which was a great location because we could head over to the Silverado Trail, or straight to downtown Napa, or go up through the Union, Yountville, St. Helena area. Things were a lot closer than I originally thought.
Where to Stay: As I mentioned, we stayed in South Napa which was very convenient because we wanted to go to wineries in multiple areas. We stayed at the Best Western Plus Inn at the Vines and we really enjoyed it. It was super clean and spacious. Also, they have a coffee machine where you can get espresso, Latte, tea, etc. Super important for us as we get up early and sometimes it is hard to find a good coffee! The staff was so helpful and friendly. They helped with suggestions on places to visit and to eat. I would stay away from the Huckleberry’s place, it was okay (we went for a quick breakfast), the food was bland and they didn’t have many healthy choices.
Day One:
We flew to Sacramento and rented a car as Napa is a little over an hour away. We rented from Thrifty car rental, I would recommend it. Now they will try to talk you into buying the gas ahead of time but Safeway gas station was cheapest and only 6 miles from the airport. They also tried to upsell other addons which we denied, but thats just us.
Once we got to Napa, our room was ready and check-in was a breeze at the Best Western. The hotel was very close to a Raylees Grocery store, Target, and a Starbucks. Also in the area was a McDonalds, Taco Bell and other food places.
We drove to Downtown Napa, about 10 min., and they have free, three hour parking available. We walked to a restaurant, the Los Agaves, and we had very good service and food.
We had a Groupon for the Vintage Sweet Shoppe wine tasting so we walked over and had a tasting of two local whites and two reds that were paired with their chocolates. It was a fun event.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the grocery store and picked up essentials for a picnic for the next few days.
Day Two:
In the morning we went to Oxbow Market for breakfast. Actually, only a small portion of the market is open early in the morning and we decided to go around the corner to a place serving coffee and breakfast sandwiches. The Model Bakery. While we were sitting outside we could see several hot air balloons rising up. There were probably 7 or 8 huge balloons. We drove over to where they were landing to watch them. It was an incredible!
Reservations are usually expected at wineries due to the limited space, but we tried our luck by heading up to St. Helena to see if we could drop in on some wineries. We stopped in at Beringer Vineyards which was so beautiful and they were just opening the doors. Luckily they had room for us to join the cave tour. From there we headed to Charles Krug because I read that they let you buy by the glass (instead of a tour and/or tasting). The wine was great of course! Now it was lunch time and we were in much need of food to soak up the wine. Gott’s Roadside Grill was the next stop. The burgers were great!
The next stop was a reservation made at Jam Cellars in downtown Napa. The wines were very tasty and our host, Bo, was great and spent a lot of time explaining the variety of wines. I would definitely recommend Beringer, Charles Krug and Jam Cellars. We had a great time at each place. Just make sure to space out the visits as it can be difficult to get to the next location on time. We did Beringer at 10:30; Charles Krug at 11:30 and Jam Cellars at 3.
Day Three:
I had made reservations for the V. Sattui Wine tasting. We did the outdoor tasting which was a good thing because there was construction happening on site. We sat near the vineyard and enjoyed the beautiful scenery while tasting the great wine. The V. Sattui tasting was scheduled for 11:30 but it took a long time and we ended up missing the Rutherford tasting I scheduled at 2! So instead, we drove over to Yountville’s Bouchon Bakery and had a coffee and walked around. We tried going to Bouchon on another day but the line was so long!
Day Four:
Domaine Carneros is a spectacular Winery. It is so gorgeous and breathtaking and very popular. We drove there just to see the winery and take pictures but so many people were there. By this time we realized we would not be tasting at every place just looking around if possible. We decided to drive the Silverado Trail and see what was available and luckily we stopped into the Rutherford Winery and they squeezed us in. Afterwards, we ate at the Rutherford Grill. This restaurant is amazing, I would definitely recommend it. In fact we ate there twice because I loved the grilled chicken salad. We also did a tasting at Mumm with sparkling wine. It was a gorgeous view over the field of grape vines. I would recommend it!
Day Five:
Our schedule today included a brunch at Domaine Chandon and it did not disappoint. This was one of the best, and priciest, things we did. The food was wonderful and Jesus, our host, was very thorough in explaining the pairings. Such a nice relaxing atmosphere to enjoy a Sunday brunch!
After going to the larger vineyards and wineries, we decided to check out a family operated location. Hendry Wines is a local, family operated winery and the entire process is conducted on site with the grapes from the vines on the farm. It was definitely a more intimate event and we didn’t even have reservations and they were so accommodating. Rigo was our host and he even took us on a tour of the vineyard and he let us pick some of the grapes off the vine. It is a beautiful place and well worth a visit.
That was our wonderful trip to the Napa Valley. What would I do differently? Well on my next visit I would go to the smaller and lesser known vineyards and see what they have to offer. I would start by making reservations at the ones I really want to try, and probably only one or two reservations per day. We did spend one quick morning walking around Sonoma downtown. It was good but I probably would not go back unless there was a vineyard close by that I wanted to see. We can't wait to visit Napa again!
In our attempt to travel Frugal, we use different websites to get the best bang for our buck. here are some we used.
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