NAPA VALLEY & SONOMA WINE TOURS

Go in your own car~go in a big bus~go in a boutique limo~summertime focaccia~polenta . . . grilled slices and roasted cubes

Photo courtesy of Captain Steve at Ultimate Wine Tours

By Car

In the 1970s, one of my very first wine tours was of Chandon, the first French-owned sparkling wine producer in Napa Valley. I was researching an article on sparkling wine and drove there from San Francisco, while my wife was attending an orthopaedic convention in the city. I don’t recall what the tasting experience cost back then, but today it begins at $50 per person. It was about as simple wine tour as can be undertaken: Drive to one winery and pay one fee. Your first trip may well be on your own. Just hit any large popular one you see on a highway.

By Tour

I spent a morning recently cruising the internet to try to get my arms around the world of wine tours. Here’s some of what I found. A couple of the most helpful sites were for Napa and Sonoma wine tasting. They’re essentially chambers of commerce or tourism departments but both do a superior job orienting visitors to all their own local treasures, be they wineries, restaurants, or places to stay or play.

Napa’s website sports 400 wineries and 90 tasting rooms. Which winery is right for you? They coach you through the answer by asking if you are easy going, are adventurous, looking for historic wineries, ECO minded, a foodie, or a professional.

The Sonoma site introduces visitors to the glories of its 500 wineries. It boasts of smaller, quieter, and more family-owned wineries than Napa. If you want a more laid back wine tasting experience, consider Sonoma, they say. By contrast, Napa has some of the world's most renowned wineries.

Other guides include the San Francisco Chronicle and a list of 25 winery recommendations. Food & Wine has Napa Valley recommendations. Plus, wine tours and tastings from TripAdvisor includes 71 wineries according to its traveler favorites.

Should you want to dig deeper into what’s really a dizzying selection of individual tour operators, have at it. The variables abound: Travel by bus, luxury sedan, van, shuttle, street car, or SUV; half-day or full-day tours; pickup site in San Francisco (anywhere within 50 miles of it) or in Napa or Sonoma; whether children are or aren’t allowed; whether the tour is to one famous vineyard—say, one owned by Francis Ford Coppola—or the customary three vineyards in a 6- to 9-hour day; whether a driver/guide is included or not; the daily cost . . . starting about $130 per person all the way up to $1,000+ per vehicle with a driver for four people; whether tasting fees at wineries are included in the cost or not; and whether the cost per hour during the week and on weekends is the same.

So here’s what I found when I dug in. California Wine Tours recommends 40+ top Napa wineries. Sonoma Wine Tours recommends visits to some wineries that produce only 150 cases of wine a year, something that I find especially intriguing. Visit just one tour company that guarantees the lowest price of them all, it’s Platypus Tours. Green Dream Tours offers half-day and full-day options. Extranomical Tours includes tasting fees and a San Francisco pickup. Napa Valley SUV features private wine tours of up to 6 passengers for 6 hours, with a chauffeur, for $65 each per hour on weekdays. Hansom Wine Tours takes customers to V. Sattui Winery, the most visited winery in Napa, which produces a whopping 60 different wines from 20 different varieties of grapes. Boundless Tours trips are to Napa or Sonoma with a driver/guide in a luxury sedan. IBDC Premium Transportation offers trips in a luxury vehicle with driver. Few allow children but Tower Tours does, age 3+ for $75 on its 9 hour bus trip. VisitNapaValley lists numerous kid-friendly destinations. Is your head spinning yet?

For travelers planning an overnight stay, many of these sites recommend accommodations, but so do AirBnB and VRBO Napa and Sonoma, always for my money, worthy options.

By Boutique Tours

I discovered Napa Valley Boutique Tours after searching even more deeply. It offers trips to some 50 small wineries at a $500 flat rate a day for two people to $950 a day for up to 14 guests. Yelp recommends 10 boutique wineries. A high-end boutique company is Cultured Vine. While there may be a number of other boutique wine tours available, I wasn’t able to turn them up after searching for hours.

I, however, did discover Ultimate Wine Tours, and quite by chance! I coincidentally had been in contact with Rockford, Illinois, high school classmates via a web site unrelated to wine or California. One happend to work at Ultimate Wine Tours. Its owner-operators—Captain Steve and Admiral Jean—have been locals in Napa Valley and Sonoma for 20 years. They offer customized wine tours with their deep knowledge of the area born of strong personal connections with many owners and winemakers. Such insider knowledge and personalized experience includes visiting smaller, unknown boutique off-the-beaten-path wineries that others surely miss, amounting what they hope will be “a matchless experience.” Such an experience can include a nifty picnic in a vineyard with the owners and winemakers at some of the attractive properties in the area.

Whether you are new to the Napa Valley and Sonoma wine scene or not, your tour can surely be customized. Or you may wish to revisit a winery you have visited in the past. Or you may be a wine enthusiast or connoisseur searching for world-class wines. Generally, three wineries are selected for a tour. You may well make a friend of the tour company if it provides you with recommendations for a special hotel or cottage to stay at, the best lunch spot ever, or a killer restaurant.

For example, seven of the 50 or so wineries on the Ultimate Wine Tour list include Frias Family Vineyard, Two Amigos Wines, Crane Family Vineyards, Taylor Family Vineyards, O’Brien Estate, Padis Vineyards, and Viader.

Summer Focaccia

I’ve never made focaccia. I’ve eaten it at restaurants where I couldn’t believe it tasted so explosively good! The Spruce Eats offers numerous varieties to make.

EDIBLE LIVING by Sara Copeland

At Pizza Antica in Lafayette, California, I’ve enjoyed focaccia as an accompaniment to burrata with olive oil . . . to spectacular effect. I understand from that restaurant soft focaccia is ideal for serving as a side with dinner, slicing in half for sandwiches, offering as a party appetizer, or dipping into a hot bowl of soup. While it's best eaten the same day it's baked, you can use leftover slices for bruschetta or a panzanella salad. It also freezes beautifully up to a few months, sliced into squares and stored in an airtight container.

Polenta Slices & Cubes

Grilled polenta is also an old favorite of mine, whether done on a gas or charcoal grill, or indoors in an oven in cooler weather. At All Womens Talk there are 32 polenta recipes. What’s crazy about polenta is you can virtually cut it into in any shape imaginable, add most any herb or cheese, and pair it with most anything to make whatever inspires you.

On my to do list are roasted cheese polenta cubes done the way of PunchFork, an online recipe search site. These cubes captured my imagination when I read they are made with semi-soft fontina or taleggio worked into the batter and topped with grated Parmesan or Grana Padano.

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