Category: Wine Tasting Tips

For some people, wine tasting is an event on a vacation.  For others, especially those who live close to Wine Country, it’s an occasional excursion.  Then there are some, like ourselves, who choose to take several days or even a week and spend the whole time in a particular wine region, with the primary purpose of tasting wine.  We do it every year somewhere in California and have arranged our vacations that way in France, Italy and Australia.  But that’s not all.  This sort of vacation is also about immersing ourselves in the natural (and man-made) beauty of the region, picnicking, dining, lazing by the pool and generally relaxing.

A multi-day wine tasting excursion is not the same as a series of one-day trips.  While each vacation day may stand alone, there are some significant differences with day-long outings from a central location outside Wine Country.  For one thing, there is no need to rush back to wherever one came from at the end of the day.  For another, one can sleep late and still be out tasting as the wineries open.  And there is none of the psychological pressure to see and experience as much as possible each day; what does not happen today can wait for tomorrow.  There might even be a day where the morning is spent in some other activity like visiting art galleries and the afternoon left to the wineries.

Most important perhaps is that a dedicated wine taster (anyone who spends several days going from winery to winery is by definition dedicated) can approach the wines differently and gain a more focused perspective.  One day might be given to comparing an unfamiliar grape, such as Syrah or Pinot Gris, at multiple wineries.  Another could be dedicated to comparing different winemakers’ approaches to Bordeaux blends or Chardonnay.  Visitors with some knowledge of the best-known labels might enjoy a day of tasting only wines from unfamiliar vineyards; there is no better way to deepen one’s understanding of the region and its products.

As with day-trippers, a multi-day vacationer should limit visits to a concentrated region.  Napa Valley, for example, aside from being a geographic region is also an American Viticultural Area (or AVA).  There are 16 sub-appellations from Calistoga in the north to Carneros in the south.  (Just to confuse matters, the area around Napa City does not have a sub-appellation, although we think it should.  And to carry the confusion even further, most people refer to the sub-appellations as AVAs anyway.)   It is possible for a vacationer with several days to spend to return to just one AVA and learn how adjoining properties growing the same grapes make very dissimilar wines, adding fuel to the argument that it is winemakers’ skills that make the difference.

Oh, but wait…  When you actually see the properties, with minute differences of sun, elevation, proximity to water and other aspects of microclimate, you will be able to say that it is all about terroir.  Only by giving yourself the opportunity to go into depth within an AVA does one get the knowledge to participate in the argument at all.

If you do spend several days winetasting, it is important to avoid a certain jadedness.  If all you have been tasting has been wine of an extremely high quality, the bottle you can afford to order at dinner may seem a little bland, or maybe more than a little.  Of course, there are many winemakers in the great winemaking areas in the US and abroad who aspire to greatness and not a few who achieve it.  If you focus only on tasting the very best that one particular region of Wine Country has to offer, you will miss many excellent wines that you will be able to buy once you get home.  You might try one of those wines and say to yourself “Gee, this awfully good.  I wonder why I didn’t care for it when I was on vacation.”  It’s all too easy to become an instant wine snob.  Don’t let the superb be the enemy of the very good.

As we mentioned in this issue, we recently attended a wine tasting organized by Treasury Wine Estates, the Australian company that owns many top end wine producers.  It was part of a tour around the country and similar tastings were held in Dallas, Miami and elsewhere.  They were highlighting four of their California brands: Beringer, Stags’ Leap, Chateau St. Jean and Etude.

If you have the opportunity to participate in such a tasting, we urge you to do so.  There are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind if you do.  Keep in mind that an event such as this is akin to a whole day’s visit to Wine Country, compressed into two hours.   Thus you have the advantage of tasting without all the driving from place to place.  On the other hand, a wine tasting like this packs a pretty solid alcoholic punch.  So, much as in a day of wine tasting, you have to pace yourself and make the most of what’s offered to you without overdoing things.

Moreover, tasting a lot of wines in such a short period of time challenges the taste buds.  Can you really differentiate what you’re drinking now from what you had five minutes ago, and five minutes before that as well?  You must use not only your mouth and your nose but also your brain.  What is there about each wine that distinguishes it?  What foods would bring out the best in the wine and voice-versa? (Having a spread of different foods to pair with the wines certainly helps figure this one out.)  If you’re with others (we always go wine tasting together) what do they think?  Their taste sensations may kick off thoughts in your own mind.

So when you go to a wine tasting such as the one we describe, consider some of the following tips.

• Eat before you drink. There are two reasons for this suggestion.  The first is that if you’re going to ingest a lot of alcohol – and you will at such an event – you had better have some food in your stomach.  The other is that the best food goes fast.  There was quite a spread at this tasting: steak, jumbo, crabmeat, oysters and much more.  Many of the best items were gone within a half hour.
• Don’t try to taste everything. No matter how small the serving, sipping up to 20 wines in that short a period is going to have a physical effect.  Moreover, you probably don’t like everything.  If you’re not a fan of white wines, don’t bother with them.  If Cabernet Sauvignon overwhelms (or underwhelms) you, skip them.  In other words, drink what you like, but not everything you like.
• Stick to the best. Since you shouldn’t try everything, you ought to go straight for the wines each estate is known for.  And if you’re not sure what that is, ask your server or the representative from the winery.  This will enable you to make peer-to-peer comparisons, both between the same grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon at this tasting) and between different ones of the same vintage.
• Talk to people. After all, they’re all wine-lovers like you so find out what brought them to the event.  In some cases they’ll be members of the same club as yourself.  Or perhaps better, they’re members of another winery’s club and can give you some perspective on why they like those wines enough to have joined.
• Find a seat. Two hours on your feet is a long time.  Two hours drinking makes it feel longer.  At the particular event in New York, if here was any one criticism, it was that they didn’t have enough chairs.
• Go back for more of your favorites. The wine is there; you paid for the experience ($30 in that case) and the servers aren’t going to take any bottles with them.  There’s no reason to be greedy but there’s no reason to be shy, either.
• At the end of the tasting, don’t get behind a wheel. No matter what you think at the time, you’ve had too much to be safe.  By this point you’ve found your favorites and have gone back a few times for more.  It adds up.  We took a taxi home; you should, too.

A tasting like this one makes for a great night out.  Make the most of it if you get the chance.

Wine tasting is an interactive endeavor.  Unless you’re opening a lot of bottles at home, by yourself, the very least you need is someone to pour the wine for you.  (And sitting home alone opening bottles isn’t healthy for mind or body.)  For most of us, it’s a social activity.  We go wine tasting together and it’s rare that we have a tasting room to ourselves.

A significant amount of time is spent talking about what we’re tasting:  “What did you think of the nose/mouthfeel/acidity/finish?  Wasn’t that yummy?  I don’t like this one.  You like big, heavy wines more than I do”.  The conversation is always amongst ourselves and often with strangers who happen to be at the bar or the table at the same time as we are.

The common element is always the server, who generally selects the order in which you taste wines and the amount that you receive.  They are trained to act like hosts at a party, to be convivial, provide information and while not actively hawking the winery’s wares, to encourage you to buy some or join the wine club.  It therefore follows that to maximize the pleasure of your visit, you should interact in a friendly manner with your server.

Now, much of that is just the manners your mother taught you.  If somebody gives you something, you smile and say thank you.  But the objective here is something more.  If you engage your server in conversation and ask fairly meaningful questions, you will get a lot more in return.  What are some reasonable questions?  You can ask how the wine you just sipped differs from previous vintages.  If the wine is estate-grown, where are the winery’s vineyards?  And if they are sourced, who do they buy grapes from?  Does their winemaker control the farming practices or is it strictly up to the vineyard owner?  You could ask the server’s opinion on how long to cellar a wine that seems to need it.  We almost always ask what the blend of grapes and the level of alcohol are.  If we think we might be interested in buying some of a wine, we ask to see the bottle; there’s often a lot of information to be gleaned from the labels.

There are two types of servers: plain pourers and wine educators.  You’re not going to get much from the former.  We’ve found that better wineries make a point of training their people so that you don’t get someone who is simply capable of filling a glass and no more.  Ah, but when you meet an educator, showing interest brings rewards.  If you wanted a comparison with previous vintages, he or she might have some and will open them so that you can compare.  We have had some rather in-depth verticals (multiple years of the same wine) on occasion.  And if you ask about cellaring, the educator might just remember that there’s a bottle of a ten-year old (or older) that they served to visiting dignitaries just this morning. “Would you like some?”  Oh, yes, indeed.

Even if you don’t get little extras, you will almost always benefit from the information you receive.  Since one of the objectives of wine tasting is to increase your knowledge of wine in general and specific producers in particular, you get the pleasure of just adding to your understanding of fine wine.

When a tasting room is really crowded, on a weekend or when a tour bus arrives, you may not be able to show your interest to your server.  He or she is overworked and underappreciated on those days.  But when you hit the right person on the right day, the effect is wonderful.  It is another reason to have a quiet, seated tasting on the busiest days.  The staff know you’re serious and treat you accordingly.

We often receive the question from our friends, “How many wineries can a person safely visit in a day?”  And the answer always is, “It depends”.   It depends on your level of interest, how you like to taste wine and most important, what your tolerance for alcohol may be.  Everyone is different in these regards so self-knowledge both in the planning before you go and during the day that you’re there is critical to both enjoyment and safety.

Here at Power Tasting, we’re all about wine tasting.  It’s not about the quality or even really about the quantity of the wine – or the cake – it’s about your overall level of appreciation.

Of course, wine is an intoxicating beverage. If you have too much of it, you can’t appreciate what you’re tasting.  And if you’re driving, you can be downright dangerous to yourself and others on the road.

So to answer the opening question, we often visit six wineries in a day.  “Six!!!!” you may be saying.  But we have our method and maybe it can help you.

• We share a tasting. We get one glass for the two of us, just as you might get two forks for one slice of cake.  That way, we get to taste as several wines at any winery without imbibing as much alcohol.  Our objective is to taste, not to drink.  (Now, there are exceptions.  If we are visiting a place that makes wines we know in advance we will particularly like, we sometimes each have our own glasses.  Those are the days we spend more time in those particular wineries and visit fewer of them overall.)  In addition, it’s less expensive if you share.
• We get a lot of appreciation out of aromas, as well as tastes. For one thing, smelling wine is an equal part of the experience.  Our noses often tell us a different story than our mouths do.  The aromas may be intoxicating, but you can’t get drunk just smelling wine.
• We sip just as one might have a nibble of cake. It only takes a little bit to get the flavors, the mouthfeel, the finesse and the finish of a wine.  There are some who spit before swallowing, but we are not among them.  Yes, we take in a bit of alcohol, but we get the complete sensation of a wine.  And then…
• We pour. That’s what the bucket on the bar is there for.  Let’s face it, not every wine is great or at least not to everyone’s taste.  So if we sip something that either or both of us don’t like it, we get rid of it.  Honest, the servers don’t care.  They fill glasses; how the visitor empties them is not the server’s concern.
• We always monitor how much we’re drinking and how we feel. If there’s any question at all, it’s time to stop.  By the time you know you’ve had too much, you’ve had way too much.

Because we are careful, we know that our usual consumption is on average about a half a glass per winery.  So if we visit six wineries, it comes to three glasses over a six to seven hour period.  For some people, that may indeed be too much, so don’t do it if you’re one of those people.

Airplanes are made for flying, not for tasting wine.  Nonetheless, they serve wine on (some) airlines, so why not taste it?  Well, for one thing, most of it is pretty awful.  In economy, they have those little 187 ml. bottles that have labels like Chateau de Somewhere or Turkey Neck Cellars.  Yes, it’s liquid, contains alcohol and is either red or white.  I think it’s fair to say they make it from grapes.  Beyond that, you’re taking your chances.

But if you’re fortunate enough to be flying in Business Class or (gasp!) First Class, they often have some pretty good wine available.  We’ve done a lot of international business travel which has given us quite a few such opportunities.  We’ve had Dom Perignon, Penfold’s St. Henri, and Chateau Beychevelle, among some of the more notable wines, while aloft.  If you’re flying overseas, why not avail yourself of a tasting based on the wine list the airline offers?  Tell the flight attendant that that’s what you’re trying to do and he or she will often be happy to give you two glasses so that you can compare, say, a California Cabernet versus a French Bordeaux.  Or ask for a white before your meal (pretty much only on overseas flights only) and then red wine with it.

If you would like to experiment in this way while flying, there are a few things you ought to think about.

Airplane cabins are not ideal locations for wine tasting.  The air is pressurized and recirculating.  The light is not in a good place to appreciate the color.  And your senses are not the same as they are on the ground.  As a general rule, powerful wines come across better in the air than lighter ones because they overcome the natural dulling of your smell and taste that are the result of airplane conditions.  As a result, what you might fall in love with in the air may taste overpowering when you order later, in a restaurant or shop.  Steve once discovered a Cambria Syrah only to find he really didn’t like it when he tasted it in California’s Central Coast.

Don’t forget that wine is alcohol.  And you’re going to feel it sooner and harder.  So the general rule that you should sip not drink if you’re wine tasting goes double up in the air.  But it’s soooo easy to forget.  The movie is playing and the attendant keeps filling your glass, so why not have a little more, and a little more and…

Once, Steve was flying home from Japan and asked the steward for one of those forms that you can use for comments.  JAL had had to do a lot of maneuvering to get him on the plane and upgraded and he wanted to thank them.  The steward must have broken protocol and read the comments, because he reappeared with a broad smile and a bottle of champagne.  For the rest of the flight, he wouldn’t let Steve’s glass become empty, to the point that Steve had to fake sleeping in order to get him to stop.  Or maybe he wasn’t faking?

Airplanes bounce.  If your flight is long enough, you’re bound to hit some turbulence somewhere.  And, lo and behold, wine will slosh.  You could have a long way to go with red wine all over your pants.  That’s why airlines don’t use stemware, so that their glasses, especially when filled, will have a lower center of gravity.  So try not to have your glass filled to the top.  Of course, you could drink quickly so there isn’t much in the glass.  Bad idea.  Or you can ask the attendant not to pour too much, which also has its drawbacks.  The flight attendants like to show the airlines’ generosity to their higher-paying customers and so give you a lot and come back to give you more.  However, they never seem to be there just when you’d like another drop or two.  For some of the more expensive wines, they may not have a lot of bottles on board, so if you don’t take these fine wines when offered, they may not be there when you want them.  Still, restraint is always a good approach.

All the above sounds like we’re discouraging you from sipping wine in the air.  Not so.  We just hope that you do what you would do if you were on a tasting visit to Wine Country.  Think about what you’re doing.  Use discretion.  And then open your taste buds and your mind and taste what may prove to be something wonderful.  Have a good time.  And bon voyage.

Wine tasting can be a destination activity.  You travel to the capitals of the wine world – Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Tuscany, the Barossa Valley – for the purpose of tasting the wonderful wines they have to offer.  But in other cases, tasting wine is secondary if not incidental to the trip.  Perhaps you’re on vacation in a city that has wineries nearby and you’d like an afternoon away from the urban bustle.  Or you live in such a place and you wake up to find a day too beautiful to stay in town.  So you decide, let’s go to Wine Country, not for serious tasting but just for a pleasant day out.

Here are some tips for making the most of such a day.

Plan ahead.  We don’t mean that you should spend hours studying guides and maps.  But take a quick look on the Web for a locale that has all the things you need: a few wineries, a restaurant and a deli.  There was a time when you really needed to know where you were going.  Nowadays, Google knows and you only have to ask.

 Minimize your driving.  Select a destination that you can get to primarily on major roads and then go there only (and there only).  Don’t lose your time behind the wheel going from winery to winery.  If there are two or three in close proximity to one another, those are the ones to visit today.  Your tasting at Chateau Latour can wait for another day.

Have lunch.  Have a very good lunch.  Have wine with your lunch. If you dine in a restaurant, make it one that’s fun.  For example, when we go wine tasting in Long Island’s North Fork, we often have burgers and sandwiches at the Old Mill Inn in Mattituck.  The attraction is sitting on a dock watching the ducks come begging for French fries and seeing the pleasure boats head out into the Sound.  It’s not great food but it’s great fun.

Shop for something that isn’t wine.  Almost every winery has stuff for sale, from caps and shirts with the winery logo to truly beautiful, unique (often overpriced) products.  You don’t have to buy but the looking can be fun.  And since Wine Country is by definition farm country, you can often find a stand with fruit, vegetables, pies and candy.

Savor the beauty that’s all around you.  There may be exceptions, but in our experience grapes only grow in beautiful places.  The vines in serried rows, like soldiers marching in formation across a hillside, are going to look brilliant, any time of year.  At almost every winery they are aware of what they have and provide a bench or a porch where you can just sit and take in the glory of the scenery.  We both say it fills our hearts.  Fill yours.

Stay as late as you can.  Of course, it depends how much time you need to drive home.  But seeing the vines in the long, golden rays of a summer afternoon – or better yet, a sunset – makes for an unforgettable day in the country.

Taste, don’t drink.  It is so tempting to go to just one more winery and to swallow everything each one has to offer.  But don’t forget that it is alcohol and you have to drive to get back home.  Sip each wine and experience it with all your senses – the aroma, the color, the feel of the glass in your hand, the murmurs of other guests – and if you really like it, buy a bottle to take home with you.

In California and in many other wine-producing regions of the world, the typical experience of wine-tasting is to pull up to the winery, stand at a bar and sip selected wines, pay a fee and leave. If you have the time and interest, you might ask a few questions and learn a bit about the wines and the people who make them. There are certain wineries and certain occasions that call for more formality. You have to call for an appointment and show up at a specified time.

This is essentially the only way to taste the wines from the grands chateaux in Bordeaux. It is also necessary at the grandfather of all Brunellos, Biondi-Santi in Montalcino, Italy. There are a growing number of wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties that require an appointment. From the wineries’ points of view, there may be a number of reasons for this policy. Often it’s because the winery is so small that there are not enough people to support having a tasting room staff. One such that we have enjoyed in the past is Acorn winery in Russian River, a mom and pop operation with a real mom and pop, Betsy and Bill Nachbaur, offering you tastes of their wines.

Others just don’t want to deal with crowds and so limit the number of visitors. Everything is usually very informal and you get a lot of personal attention. We recently visited A. Raffanelli in Dry Creek where we tasted Zinfandel, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon in their barrel room, with the wines served by a member of their production staff.

If you are interested to take a tour of a winery’s vineyards and production facilities, you usually need an appointment. This is only fair because they need to schedule workers to lead the tours and cannot accommodate too many people.

Finally, there are those who require appointments because they want to underscore their exclusivity. This may not be as snobbish as it sounds; they may sell extremely well-made wines at extremely high prices and see no reason to share their products with those who are unlikely to appreciate them. Yes, that’s snobbish. But when you are being asked to pay high prices for a tasting – $50 at Viader on Howell Mountain; $75 at Verité in Chalk Hill – you don’t want to be bellying up to the bar with the riff-raff. In other words, if you’re willing to pay that much, you become a bit of a snob as well. It is, in many cases, the only way you can have the opportunity to taste some very rare and pricy wines. However, you have to understand that you might be there for an hour or more listening to the whole story of the family, the building, the winemaker, the vineyard, and how great and beautiful their wines are plus dealing with the chit-chat of the person serving you. Too many of those in one day can be annoying.

One of the best reasons to sign up for an appointment is to avoid the madness if you are visiting Napa and Sonoma on a weekend. Saturday and Sundays (and sometimes Friday afternoons) can find tasting rooms packed, noise levels high, and large groups preventing you from getting a little wine in your glass, much less having a conversation with a knowledgeable server. You may even have the unpleasant experience of sharing the space with an overserved bachelorette party. If nothing else, an appointment guarantees you some tranquility while you’re having your tasting.

In many cases, tastings that require appointments are sit-down affairs, with a server who really knows what he or she is pouring. Often they include a tour. (There are significant exceptions to sitting around a table. Chappelet on Pritchard Hill, for example, offers a walking tour, tasting as you go.) All are fairly lengthy; you won’t be able to sip one or two wines and then leave. As we said, you’re in for the long haul, often more than an hour. Some are worth it. For example, the tasting at Jordan in Alexander Valley is conducted in a lovely library and dining room in a faux French chateau. Alas, there have been occasions when we felt trapped in a room with ten strangers, counting the minutes until we could gracefully escape. No matter the quality of the wine, the experience can be claustrophobic. We’re afraid that Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel fall into that category.

Here’s a nice little secret. “By Appointment Only” doesn’t always mean what it says. If a tasting room has the capacity, they will probably accommodate walk-ins, especially if you ask nicely. We were welcomed in that manner at Passalacqua in Dry Creek recently and were rewarded with a splendid seated tasting on a veranda overlooking seemingly endless vineyards. The staff at Tamber Bey in Calistoga found room for us on a Saturday. That was kind of them, but even with an appointment-only policy, they were quite full with large groups of visitors and it was very noisy.

Our advice is to use appointments judiciously. They make sense if there’s a specific wine you’re dying to try. If your travel plans mean that you must be tasting on a weekend, they can alleviate a lot of the unpleasantness that is an unfortunate part of Saturdays and Sundays in Wine Country.

 

In the late 1970’s, when wine tasting in California first became popular (or at least when we first experienced wine tasting in Napa Valley) the pours were served in tiny glasses, about four inches high with a bowl the size of a small tangerine. They were thick and heavy for a small glass and the wineries gave them away. Those were the days when the winemakers were happy that anyone was paying serious attention to their products at all. Somewhat thereafter, the wineries would buy glasses with their logos inscribed on them and they would still give them away. The tastings were free in those days, too.

Over time, there was a charge for the tastings and the wine glasses became larger and thinner. Some wineries still give them away with the tasting but don’t expect it. In more recent years, the glass only came with the reserve tastings (i.e., expensive) until today there are only a handful of wineries that give away glasses at all. Among them are Caymus in Rutherford and Silver Oak and its sister winery, Twomey in both Napa and Sonoma. Tablas Creek in Paso Robles and Steele in Lake county still do so as well. There are a few others, but even the ones that gave glasses even a few years ago no longer offer them.

We would not recommend that anyone go to a winery just to collect stemware. The wineries mentioned here are well worth a visit for the quality of the wine, which of course is the prime reason for going wine tasting at all. Nonetheless, souvenir glasses are fun to collect for some people, and if you are one of them you can usually buy engraved glasses at the winery. This raises two questions: how do you get them home, especially if you are flying, and what do you do with them once you get home?

The glasses you get at wineries today are usually of fine quality, with large tulip shaped bowls made of fine, thin crystal. The glasses are often from some of the most famous crystal-makers, including Riedel and Schott Zweizel and have no beads. (The bead is the rounded edge at the rim of a wine glass. The finer the glass, the thinner the bead and the best have no bead at all.)

The problem, of course, is that fine crystal is very delicate. Many of the wineries will wrap the glasses in tissue paper and give each glass to you in a paper bag. We recommend that you bring bubble wrap or envelop the glasses in your clothing.  Still, there’s no guarantee that they will arrive intact. If you buy a set of glasses, the wineries will usually have a box for them, thereby avoiding the problem.

Over the years, we have collected many souvenir wine glasses. In our second home, we have enough that we can set a table for maybe as many as sixteen people, although we don’t have a table that big. In our New York home, we use the souvenir glasses for our everyday wines, reserving our finer crystal for our best wines. The engraved glasses are great for parties, since people can recognize their own glasses by the name of the vineyard. When we have two of a certain winery’s glasses, we give them to couples.

So in sum, don’t go wine tasting just to collect glassware, but if they give you glasses, enjoy them. And if you particularly like a glass and want a souvenir where they don’t give them away, buy them.

 

When you go wine tasting, keep in mind that the vineyards are in the country, which means there are not a lot of restaurants, cafés or grocery stores around.  So we recommend that you plan your day with your lunch in mind.

We usually begin our day wine tasting around 10:30.  We make sure to have something in our stomachs; it’s not a good idea to drink with an empty one.  By lunch time we have some alcohol in our bodies and we know we’d better have something to eat.  While planning our day as to which sector and wineries we will visit, i.e. Oakville, St. Helena, Russian River, Dry Creek, we always determine beforehand where we’re going to have lunch.

In Napa and Sonoma, some of the best chefs in the U.S. have one or more restaurants.  There is no lack of great restaurants there.  Also, most of the large hotels or resorts have dining rooms.  The choice is yours to spend a few hours having lunch or take that time to visit a winery Power Tasting. That’s why you’re in wine country, right?  You’ll have plenty of time at night to enjoy a dinner in one of those restaurants.  We prefer to have a quick lunch and spend our time visiting wineries and discovering wines.

Some hotels will sell you a picnic box that you can order the day before and pick-up in the morning.  Or, if there is a little deli that you have seen while driving around, make it your first stop in the morning and buy your lunch.  If it’s warm outside, bring a bag of ice from the hotel ice machine and buy a small styrofoam cooler (most of the delis sell that), you’ll have it for the rest of your stay

Very few wineries now have picnic areas but some do, and if you have a wine tasting or buy a bottle of their wine, you can use their picnic grounds.  Some sell charcuterie, cheese, bread sticks, crackers, etc.  On a beautiful warm day, it’s pleasant to sit outside looking at the vineyard while you’re having your lunch.  It adds pleasure to your wine tasting experience.

V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena has a Marketplace, Deli and Gift Shop where you can get a warm meal, chicken, sandwiches, salads and cheeses. You can buy your lunch, a bottle of wine and use their picnic grounds, something we have done quite a few times. Outside food and wine are not allowed on their property; it’s only fair.

Most of the wineries are far from a deli, or do not sell any food, and you could lose a lot of time driving around to find one.  This is why you have to plan your lunch.  In upcoming posts, we’ll write about our favorite delis and cafés with seating areas and restaurants where lunch is fast and inexpensive.

As we’ve said before, children and bars are not a good fit. However, some wineries are kid-friendly and we will mention a few here that we’ve been to in the past where both parents and children can have a good time.

If you’re planning to take your kids, it might be a good idea to make a few phone calls to the wineries you’re thinking of visiting and ask if kids are welcome, or even allowed. In nice weather, some will invite you to sit outside for the tasting so the children can play. Some will offer crayons and paper; some will give the children juice. Paraduxx welcomes kids and even dogs in their large garden behind the winery where kids have games to play with, while their parents have their tasting sitting in lawn chairs. At Plumpjack Winery they give lollipops and Chardonnay-grape sodas to the little ones and invite them to play outside on their grounds.

Picnics are fun for the whole family but very few wineries now have picnic areas. Those that do got their permits before the law restricting them was enacted. It is fun to buy a bottle of wine and bring it outside to have a picnic with your kids. Of course you have to buy from that winery if you want to use their picnic area; it’s only fair.

The winery V. Sattui in Saint Helena makes picnicking a particular attraction. In addition to winetasting, you can buy your meal in their Italian Market Place and Deli where they have a great selection of cheeses, sandwiches, salads, chicken, breads, pizza, etc. Of course, you can pick up a bottle of wine in their huge shop, buy your food and walk outside, choose a table on their picnic grounds and have a great time with your kids. We have done it a few times (but without kids) and always enjoyed it. Do remember that bringing food from outside is not allowed. Honestly there’s no need for that; they have everything you want in their deli.

 

Some wineries, such as Château St. Jean, sell charcuterie, cheese, bread sticks, crackers, etc. On a beautiful warm day, what a pleasant thing it is to stop at one of those wineries with your family, have a wine tasting and/or buy a bottle of wine and some of their food and sit outside looking at the vineyard while you’re having your lunch. We do that as often as we can (weather permitting). It adds so much pleasure to your wine tasting experience

Over the years that we have been in California tasting wine, one of our favorite places to stop for a tasting and a picnic has been Preston of Dry Creek, now called Preston Farm & Winery. They have a large picnic ground and welcome you to have a picnic there, as long as you buy a bottle of their wines. You’ll enjoy being there and so will your children. If you’re visiting on a week-day, you can have fun playing bocce with your kids.   We’ve seen families having picnics there and kids running around and playing with the many cats that run free. Yes, at Preston Winery they are cat lovers and there are cats everywhere that will come to you to beg for food and let you pet them. They used to make beautiful posters featuring a cat sipping their wine. Being a cat lover herself, of course Lucie bought one of those and had it framed.

Besides making great Rhône style wines (our favorite is called “L. Preston”), the barn-style winery itself is very rustic, surrounded by not only vineyards but olive trees. Preston is an organic farm and winery, with home-grown vegetables and fruits. They also make delicious olive oil. In the tasting room, they always display some freshly baked bread to sample with their olive oil. Outside, they have a farm store where you can buy some of their organic products or just stroll around and feel like you’re stepping back in time.

So please, if you absolutely want to take your children with you in Wine Country, make a few phone calls beforehand to make sure that the winery you want to visit is kid-friendly.

Have fun. Cheers!