Napa Valley advice please

Haven’t been in about 30 years.

As I understand it, the wineries have become destinations and you pay for tasting…as opposed to wandering around from winery to winery for free alcohol :smiley:

Can anyone recommend “rustic”/historical accommodations with mineral springs…nothing fancy please!

Also any historical sites of interest… I understand that Calistoga was one of the first resorts back in the late 1800’s.

You can’t miss seeing the Old Faithful Geyser in Calistoga! It’s water that shoots up in the air! And there’s goats! Fainting goats!

Why are you still here! GO!

Bistro Don Giovanni. That is all.

One of the very few things I miss about living near there.

Just called my best friend who lives in Santa Rosa. Yep. True. When I used to go see him 20-30 years ago, we had great free drinks all day.

It’s unusual to find wineries anywhere in CA that offer free tastings. David Bruce (in the Santa Cruz mountains) is one of the last hold-outs. In fact, many wineries now have more than one tasting menu and they vary by price.

You will generally find that the tasting fee can be used towards the purchase of wine.

Go to Sonoma.

Jack London Historic Park is a great place to visit, even if you’re not particularly a fan of London’s work. The old ranch holdings are scattered in amongst some beautiful oak woodlands, and there are some neat historical artifacts in the various buildings that chronicle Jack’s short but amazing life.

We rented some cabins at Mountain Home Ranch in Calistoga a few years back. I didn’t even do any tasting at wineries, just waited for the family members who did to return with their bottles!

If you want free wine tasting head to Australia! Margaret River, Hunter Valley, McClaren Vale… nowhere have I ever been charged a fee.

I haven’t been to the CA wine country in a very long time. Still, this would be my recommendation, unless you absolutely had to see Napa. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of interesting wineries in Napa, but Sonoma is a bit more low-key. Or at least, it was. Anderson Valley is more laid-back still, but that’s a bit of a drive away.

These two links purport to be from Sonoma County Tourism, and claim to be a list of all of their wineries that don’t charge for tasting. Anyway, despite the 2013 copyright symbol at the bottom of these two links, I don’t know when they were written. And since they claim Ridge’s Lytton Springs tasting room doesn’t charge, yet Ridge’s own website mentions their fee schedule, I wouldn’t put a ton of faith in it. Still, I guess it could help somewhat? The second link is to wineries that will—allegedly—waive their fee if you’ve a Visa Signature cardholder. I went down memory lane thinking of wineries I’d visited in the past that did not charge, and all of the ones I can remember, that still exist, charge to taste. Some will waive a portion or all of the fee though if you buy a bottle. But yeah, it looks like pretty much every one is pay to play now.

Here’s a map, from this article dated May 2013, that lists a very few Napa wineries that still offer complementary tastings. Including Heitz Cellars, which is really surprising to me. My guess is that the interactive map I linked to puts wineries that decline to state on their webpage whether they have a tasting fee or not in the “$0” category. And, double checking some of their entries, it too, is wrong on some. E.g., they list Littorai as $0 cost, which made me raise an eyebrow, considering how much their wines sell for. Yet, Littorai’s own website mentions their cheapest tasting/tour is $25 a head.

Per this Nov. 2012 S.F. Chronicle article, in Sonoma, Rochioli and Korbel Champagne Cellars are still free to taste. Both are coy on their websites. IMHO, Rochioli is outstanding, FWIW. It was free back in the day when I visited, with a fee for one of their vineyard designate Pinots—pay it if they’re still offering it—but you know how that goes.

Your trip sounds like a blast. When you get back, let us all know how it went.

There’s a petrified forest near Calistoga.

I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to look up the details of how to get there. It’s on one of the roads through the hills between Calistoga and the Sonoma valley area.

You can also catch up on the latest goofy Clover Milk billboards. (For the homebound, see e.g. http://cloverstornetta.com/category/billboard-gallery/2000-2009/ )

Awesome info!!! Thanks !!!

And don’t forget the Wine Train!

We had a very nice trip with great weather…thanks again all.

The ruins of Jack London’s house were alone worth the trip!

By all means, after all Sonoma is for wine, Napa is for auto parts.
And the petrified forest is worth a look. Just keep going north through Calistoga and turn left just as your leaving town.
Oops, didn’t notice this was a bit of a zombie thread.

1 month is fine for revivication. But really, Napa is pretty, but it’s a lot of wineries and towns along one highway. If you plan on drinking, it’s not very walkable, whereas in Sonoma, Healdsburg and Sonoma and such (don’t remember Santa Rosa wine-wise but it has stuff) have central squares where you can hang out. Healdsburg also has a good brewery (Bear Republic) if you’re tired of fermented grape.

You had great weather indeed, if you were just here. Now its going to rain for the next few days (though we need it).

In case anyone else comes across this in a search, one of our favorite places in Napa County is the Grist Mill State Park.

We planned on checking that out the last morning on our way back. However, I screwed up somehow and booked the 9:30a.m. Alcatraz tour instead of the 11:30. Discovered the error the night before so we had to get up really early to make the drive from Calistoga. I was amazed how easy that commute was though.