Great Western Road Trip: Travel Tips for Wine Country, California

California's Napa and Sonoma Valleys are widely celebrated as the crown of "New World" wineries. But navigating through the hundreds of wineries available can really take some work. Here are tips for getting the most out of Wine Country, California.

The first thing you need to know is that there is absolutely no way in the world to visit every winery in California's Wine Country. There's just too many. In the roughly 40-mile stretch of California's scenic Napa and Sonoma Valleys, there are literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, of vineyards and wineries. Most of them are easily accessed from several main roads, some are not. It is a stunningly beautiful area with a very pleasant and mild climate.

Another thing you have to realize is that wine-tasting (if done haphazardly and without a plan of action) can cost you a lot of money very quickly. I think the majority of business that takes place in Wine Country, California is geared towards the very wealthy locals or the wine connoisseurs who are willing to spend a fortune. There are very few completely free wine-tastings in Napa or Sonoma Valley, but with the right tips, you can have more than your share without spending much money at all.

The last thing to know before embarking on your tour of California's Wine Country is that you don't actually need to know much about wine. It's true that many of the other wine country tourists you encounter will know a lot about wine, but with one or two days in Wine Country, you'll learn more than enough to really savor your glass and impress your friends and family back home.

So the first thing to do is pick up a few wine country guides. You can check in the visitor centers in the cities of Napa or Sonoma and find maps with some, but not all, of the available wineries marked on them. These guides/maps will usually only highlight the wineries which advertise through them, but many of these same wineries are often some of the more popular and least expensive ones.

A magazine like Wine Country This Week can provide a wealth of information and advertisements as well as special articles on certain vineyards that you may be interested in checking out. One of the most useful brochures we found was The Best of the Wine Country. In both of these or anything else you find, pay attention to the advertisements. They'll often have special offers or coupons that give you free tastings at wineries, discounts on bottles, or many other things to help lower your cost when visiting California's Wine Country.

Lodging in Wine Country, California can be very expensive. So, your best bet on finding a decent rate will be to find a hotel coupon book or something similar and choose among the greater number of options in Napa or even somewhere further away from Wine Country. The earlier you book, the more likely you'll get a decent rate.

The next step would be to just start driving through the valleys on one of the main roads. Sonoma Valley's wineries can almost all be accessed via Highway 12 and Napa Valley has two major roads, Highway 29 primarily and Silverado Trail further south. I don't think there's anywhere on these roads where you can drive a whole mile and not see an entrance to a winery, while many of them are just a hundred feet apart and on both sides of the road.

Most of the winery signs don't give a tremendous amount of information. They usually tell you their tasting hours (which range from 8 am to 7 pm, but most are 10-5) and sometimes whether or not they offer tours. They don't often tell you how much a tasting costs or if they offer free tastings and while the average is about $10 for 4-6 tastings, they can sometimes cost up to $30 for just a couple of different varieties.

This is where the free guides and brochures come in handy. Many wineries offer free or discounted tastings exclusively through their advertisements. You have to either mention them or tear them out and bring them in with you. If you're limited on time, you can limit your stops just to the ones that offer free tastings through The Best of the Wine Country guide and still occupy your whole day.

But if you're leisurely or a particular winery catches your eye (and they will!), there are still other ways to get a nice tasting without spending too much money. The first thing you want to do is ask how much a tasting costs or if they offer them for free. Then, you can look at their wine-tasting list and see if something catches your eye. If so, ask if you can just taste one for free. 95% of the time, you can.

But after tasting one, talk to the winery employee doing the wine tasting and talk about what you like or dislike about that particular wine. Do your best to describe it and the kind of things you like most and chances are good you'll get another tasting on the house. If it's still not exactly what you're looking for, you can often get a third free tasting or a recommendation to another winery.

That's one thing I learned and greatly appreciated about Wine Country, California. The employees of most of the vineyards are very knowledgeable about wine and the wine-making and wine-tasting process, but very few of them are snobs. Almost every wine-tasting employee we encountered was very friendly and very helpful; they all just seem to enjoy being involved with wine. You'll most likely get the most attention and the best customer service at a smaller winery. However, some of the larger ones also have great customer service and they're more likely to have free tastings and less expensive wine.

At the first winery you visit, simply inquire about the proper etiquette for tasting and they'll very politely teach it to you. For each wine you taste, read its description or ask the employees to describe it for you, and you'll start to learn the vocabulary to describe what you're looking for. Talk about what you've liked most (even if it's just your own words and not official wine jargon) and you'll find most winery employees are very interested and helpful to offer special selections from their own winery or recommend a winery where they think you can find what you're looking for.

If there's a widely distributed brand of wine (based in Wine Country) that you already know you enjoy, make sure to visit their winery. Chances are very good that what they distribute is just a small sample of the wines they actually produce, and probably not even their best. Though wines from most of the vineyards in Wine Country, California can't be easily found outside their winery store itself, the ones that can often have much better selections they retain for local purchase.

Another enjoyable and educational thing to do in California's Wine Country is to take a tour of a winery. Not all wineries offer tours, nor do all the ones that do have tours offer them often. A larger winery will usually offer several every day and it should be easy to buy tickets, but a smaller one should probably be contacted and reserved in advance. Plan it into your schedule too, because a tour can take from 30 minutes to two hours and you have to remember that if you're pressed for time and going for a breadth of winery experiences.

We took a tour at Beringer Vineyards in Napa Valley and it was relatively inexpensive (about $15 each) and had an excellent and witty tour guide. We viewed the vines, the cellars, talked about the selection and fermentation process and the history of the winery. It also included a sample of wines exclusive to the winery tour. Most wineries' tours include a complimentary tasting, even if they usually charge quite a bit for the tasting alone.

Pretty much all of the wineries in California's Wine Country offer "wine clubs." They're a good way of being regularly supplied with wine from a vineyard you know you appreciate, even if you don't live in the area. Look into paying $50-$100 (plus shipping) every few months for one or two bottles of wine selected by the winery. But if you're really impressed with one winery's available selection, chances are good that the wine club may be your only way to buy more once you leave Wine Country.

Many wine clubs also allow you free access to that winery's gardens and estate. That is the other spectacular thing about Wine Country, California: the estates! They're almost all done in some beautiful Italian villa, French chateau, or Victorian mansion style and they almost all have well-manicured gardens and seating areas. Only a small portion are limited to members of their wine club (but those are usually the most spectacular) and the rest can be enjoyed even by casual tourists.

Quite a few of the wineries also have gourmet food selections and their own cafés or restaurants. V. Sattui in Napa Valley offers excellent and affordable continental-Italian-French style food and a very nice picnic area as well as one of the largest selections of wine varieties in Napa Valley. They also have a little grocery store where European cheeses and French pâtés can be purchased.

All in all, California's Wine Country is an incredibly enjoyable experience. The climate is great and the scenery is beautiful, accented by incredible estates. The people are very friendly and knowledgeable. The wine is great. Just remember these tips if you want to make the most of your visit and you're on a budget.