Wine Tour FAQ

Tours are typically 9 hours for someone staying in San Francisco.  Pick-ups are (more or less);

8:45 to 9:00 for someone staying south of Market Street or downtown.
9:00 to 9:15 for someone staying in the Union Square area
9:15 to 9:30 for those staying in the Fisherman’s Wharf area
9:45 to 10:15 for Wine Country Hotels

Your day will end at about 5:45 pm for wine country hotels
and approximately 6:30 pm for San Francisco hotels.

Please note that return times vary, based on how far away the last winery is, traffic, and number of drop-offs.  If you are planning on making dinner reservations, it is best to have them at 8:00pm or later, just in case…

Let me start by saying that Napa is changing.  In the past 15 years of leading tours, the Valley has seen an explosion of new wineries and visitors.  The tasting fees have also risen.

But another way to see it is that the experience has greatly improved.  Most tastings are seated and they often include a tour of either the vineyard of winery.  Tastings used to be done in under an hour, but most places keep folks for an hour-fifteen to an hour and a half.  You want to have time to relax and take in the views, and the last thing we want to do is to tell you to leave when you are enjoying yourself!

The Napa tour will now visit 3 wineries with a tasting fee up to $50 per person, although many will not be this much.  This ensure that we can visit the wineries with the best wines and experience, as well as include more requests to your favorite places.  Plus, three wineries seem to be the perfect amount for the majority of people.  We can always add a 4th winery at the end if there is time.

For the Sonoma Valley or Northern Sonoma tours, we should still get to four wineries.  However, the group can dictate the speed to a certain point.  How involved the tastings are, driving times, traffic and distances between wineries are also a factor.

Of course!  Because we aren’t in a tour bus or van, and always in groups of 6 or less, we can visit all 900+ wineries up here!  (as long as the tasting fee is under $50 per person for the shared tours)  Please let us know well in advance which wineries you are interested in, and keep in mind that if there are other people on the tour, we will try and go to some of their places also.  You can, of course choose everything with a private tour.  Very often, there aren’t any requests, in which case we will take you to many of our favorites.

The same tour has never been done twice so there is no schedule or list to give, but if you leave it up to us, you will be more than happy.  Wineries are chosen because they make great wine, are non-touristy, have beautiful grounds and/or historic value, have knowledgeable and fun people, and are very well respected within the winery community.  You can feel assured that you had the best possible day in wine country.

Winery tasting fees on the shared tours in Napa range from free to $50 a tasting.  We try to average the tasting fees to about $35 per winery, although this is not always possible.  Winery tasting fees in Sonoma range from free to $40.  Some wineries will waive the tasting fee if wine is purchased, so it is possible to not pay any tasting fees all day.  Often, parties of 2 are welcome to share tastings, although a few place don’t allow it.  You can then have us ship your wine home at the end of the day (USA only), or check it as luggage on the plane.  You are also allowed to bring wine to restaurants in California, so this is another option.

Tough question, I get asked this all the time.  My answer is that there are truly great wineries in both.  Napa is a little fancier – wineries tend to be more private and many tastings are seated.  This, or course translates to higher tasting fees.  Sonoma is more laid-back and rustic – most wineries don’t take reservations and tastings are typically done standing at a bar.  Sonoma is greener as it is closer to the coast, while Napa has more impressive and historic wineries.

One of the great aspects of this tour is that it will pick you up directly from most hotels!

For Napa tours, we can pick you up in San Francisco, Sausalito, the TOWN of Sonoma, Napa city, or Yountville.

For a Sonoma tour, we can pick you up in San Francisco, Sausalito, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, and most towns along Highway 101.

Please understand that it is not time effective to pick people up in Napa to do a Northern Sonoma tour, and vice versa.   Most of our customers are picked up in San Francisco, and it takes 2 hours or more to travel up to one valley, then the other.

For Private Tours, we can pick you up anywhere…

A nice part of spending a day in wine country is the fabulous food!  We usually visit one of the nearby restaurants for lunch.  Sometimes if the weather is nice and everyone is agrees, we can have a picnic in the vineyard.

Just click “Request a Tour” at the top of any page and fill out the form.  We will get back to you within 24 hours.  You are also welcome to call the office at 415-310-9598.  You hope you decide to do it!

In the unfortunate event that you need to cancel this great tour, let us know as soon as possible.  Tours cancelled outside 48 hours are fully refunded.  Tours cancelled within 48 hours of departure will be charged the full amount of the tour.