California Wine Country – Biking & Tasting

October 23, 2009

Our recently completed bike and wine tour of California was a great success, in no small part because of what fun we had at the wineries. The number of wineries in the Napa and Sonoma regions is a tad overwhelming and judging by what we heard there will be alot of grapes left unpicked since wine sales are way down. In the Napa Valley alone there are approximately 400 wineries!! and there are over 250 in the Sonoma region.
Welcome to Napa Valley

The Napa wineries in particular, are on a scale I haven’t witnessed before, especially when you consider the numbers of them that have huge buildings, tasting rooms, picnic areas, gift shops and in some cases, art galleries.  The Sonoma wineries are generally smaller in size and are often family owned.

Here is my list of the ones I think are worth visiting (in no particular order), ones I wish I’d had time for and ones that I would pass on next time round.

Worth a Visit

Del Dotto – for their barrel tasting **reserve ahead** $40 pp

Cakebread – reserve ahead- $10 pp for amazing wines - excellent value!

123485512 a38e23a2e7 California Wine Country Biking & Tasting

Rombauer – also has nice views (which means a stiff climb to get there!) and related to ‘Joy of Cooking’ fame author where you can pick up autographed books; also recommended by locals

Castello di Amoroso – if you’ve never seen a castle before

Ferrari Carano – to see the gardens. Do the reserve tasting.

Sbragia Family – friendly, picturesque, great wines and a nice picnic patio

Gary Farrell - extremely strenuous climb to the winery BUT great fun and truly delicious wines- $10-$15 pp

Wish I’d Been

Robert Mondavi – because he was one of the originals and the tour is supposed to be excellent

Far Niente – supposed to be extraordinary wines and gardens though $50pp and definately requires a booking

Grgich Hills – now that I know more about the wine maker

Opus One – just to see the winery which is architecturally very interesting

Opus One Winery

Opus One Winery

Cliffe Lede – of Cliff bar fame- would like to see what they do with wine since I’ve existed on their Cliff bars on many of my adventures

Sonoma Cutrer – since I’ve been drinking and enjoying their wine for years

Wish I hadn’t bothered

Beaulieu Vineyards(BV) They were friendly enough but the regular wine tasting was overpriced especially the whites at $10 pp. Perhaps the reserve tasting would have been worthwhile but compared to other wineries the value wasn’t there

Clos Pegase – interesting spot, love the wines but felt depressed by the spot as it had the signs of being unkempt and staff seemed unhappy

Visiting wineries by bike is actually a great way to do it with the only downside being that you can’t carry much with you. You burn off the calories that you’ve drunk, it’s much easier for bikes to zip across the busy Highway 29 that passes through Napa Valley and even better is the fact that you are deemed more approachable and you end up having great conversations  with a huge cross section of people. That happened at almost every winery!

I don’t usually like to revisit a spot but there are more back roads to explore and so many more wineries to visit, that this is one trip I would happily make again. Doing it self-supported also costs less than half of what tour companies charge.

I highly recommend this trip from April to October if you are doing it as a bike tour but obviously with a car, wine tasting can be a year round activity. However, it does rain ALOT from November to January.

And if you are somewhat interested check out these Napa Valley wine facts.

Leigh McAdam

hikebiketravel.com

Posted by Hike Bike Travel | Filed Under Biking in North America - tips and tours, Restaurant Tips, Wine Tours and Tips 

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