San Francisco - Valley wine tours

[Claire L]

We are off to San Francisco in just about 3 weeks and want to go on a wne tour, who would you suggest as offering a good tour?

Claire

 

[Pop Daddy]

you know my sister just got home yesterday, from San Fransico, and she did a tour, I dont know where, but she said she didnt like it that well.

 

[Claire L]

Any one able to offer any recomendations?

Claire

 

[arminnie]

Are you talking about a tour that will drive you up to Napa (or Sonoma) and take you to different wineries or are you talking about visiting the tours at individual wineries?

I personally prefer Sonoma over Napa. I've been going for about 35 years and feel that Napa has just become so commercialized. The traffic is awful. I would go during the week instead of a weekend.

Sterling Vineyards has an interesting tour - you take a sky ride up to the top. Beautiful views.

But I really like the little town of Sonoma. It has a town square and you can just walk to a lot of places.

 

[Claire L]

Are you talking about a tour that will drive you up to Napa (or Sonoma) and take you to different wineries or are you talking about visiting the tours at individual wineries?

I personally prefer Sonoma over Napa. I've been going for about 35 years and feel that Napa has just become so commercialized. The traffic is awful. I would go during the week instead of a weekend.

Sterling Vineyards has an interesting tour - you take a sky ride up to the top. Beautiful views.

But I really like the little town of Sonoma. It has a town square and you can just walk to a lot of places.

We want to go on an escorted tour so that we can both sample the wines

Claire

 

[arminnie]

We want to go on an escorted tour so that we can both sample the wines

Claire

Good point - since I lived there (SF area) I usually ended up being the driver and didn't get to sample. I'd ask at your hotel for a recommendation.

 

[diznygirl]

You could check out the Napa Valley Wine Train, http://www.winetrain.com/.

I've never done it cuz we always had a designated driver (one year that was me cuz I was pregnant). We have gone on the weekend and done Napa on one day and Sonama on the other. Sonoma is a cute little town. If you park in the center of town there are a few wineries within walking distance. And a wonderful bakery.

 

[DawnCt1]

When we visited SFO we booked a Mondavi Wine tour, (its free) before we left. There was a tram that drove us around through their vineyard, explained the growing, harvesting, etc process, took us through the winery and we ended with a wine tasting. I think that Mondavi is a big enough winery to provide yoou with the experience you may be looking for.....unless you want to see a variety of wineries but frankly, while we enjoyed it and would do it again, one was enough in one day.

 

[diznygirl]

We usually do one winery tour, and then spend the rest of the day just tasting.

Sterling is neat - with the tram ride and the views. But we didn't like the wine.

Two wineries to put on your list: V. Sattui - everything a winery should be, and Silverado - Diane Disney Miller's winery.

Have fun!

 

[minniecarousel]

Here's the link to tours out of San Francisco. I highly recommend the Copia Tour in Napa. Copia is the Mondavi-built Food & Wine educational center that is fairly new. Beautiful facility & we learned to cook baby artichokes! (I thought I knew everything about artichokes, never bought those little bitty ones - now that I know what to do with them, I can't find them!) It also has the only restaurant with Julia Child's name (Julia's Kitchen). We recently stayed in Yountville, just North of Napa. This link is all about day tours out of SF.

http://www.grayline.com/franchise.cfm/action/details/id/23

 

[krcit]

DH and I went to San Franscisco about 6 years ago. I loved it!!! We didn't do any of the wine country tours but did do a couple of the grayline tours. We did the Monterey Bay/Aquarium and Carmel tour. It was a long time on the bus(like 12 hours) but the scenery was so beautiful. We also did the Muir Woods and Sausalito-the giant redwoods at the Muir woods were incredible!!! I really enjoyed seeing that. You also have to go to Alcatraz-that was so interesting. have a great time!!!!! Wish I was going with you, lol!

 

[denisekayt]

A disclaimer on my recommendations...my DH and I are not wine people, in fact it's rare that I like a wine (we live about 12 miles from Napa...and I know some people would think it a crime that we don't drink wine! ). Also, family and friends who have visited us aren't really into drinking wine either, so the places we go are mainly about learning how they grow/create the wine and good wine country scenic touring, not really about the wines we were tasting.


The winery that we take family to when they visit us for a good tour is the Benziger Family Winery (www.benziger.com). They have a nice, small winery in Sonoma that has an excellent tour. You ride a tram out into the vineyards, get to tour inside their caves, and the times we've been there we received 4 wines to taste as part of the tour. For $10 each we think it's a pretty good deal!

The other winery I generally take visitors is Viansa, also in Sonoma (www.viansa.com). We like this one because you can buy some nice picnicy type lunches there and they have a WONDERFUL outdoor eating area that you can look out over the valley as you eat your lunch. They also have quite a unique gift shop with lots of interesting items. You can sample wines there as well, but since that's not really what we're interested in we haven't done it so I'm not sure how much they charge.

I agree with the previous poster that Sonoma is a great little town to visit. The Visitors Bureau is right there on the "main square", definitely take the time to stop in. The ladies there can give you tons of brocheres, maps, provide recommendations (they directed us to Benziger originally), and also may have coupons for free tastings at various wineries if you're interested

Have a great trip!!

 

[Claire L]

Thank you for all the replies, looks like a Sonoma area tour is going to be the best. We went to Sf 3 years ago and did the city, Alcatraz, Muir Woods and Sausalito, so this time thought we would do something different

Claire

 

[goofy's friends]

We're going in Nov. and are thinking of doing wine tours even though we aren't wine drinkers. When you say wine tasting, is that the same as a class where they teach you about wines?