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Ten Tips For the California Wine Country Traveler

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about wine country getaways

Joe and Janelle in St. Helena , September 2015. St Clement winery on the hill.

We have been traveling the wine country for many years. We travel year round to visit wineries and tasting rooms. Each season and month bring its own rewards in wine country.  We are seasoned wine country tourists and we have some travel tips for you.

Ten Tips For the California Wine Country Traveler

Tasting room fees can quickly add up

Walk into any tasting room these days and more than likely you will be paying a fee to taste wine. In the Napa Valley the average is in the $10 to $20 range, with the high-end wineries charging much more. To save on tasting fees, share a single tasting with your partner or friend. Stop off at the local Chamber of Commerce office and pick up any discount or two-for-one coupons for tasting. If you stay at a local B&B or hotel, they usually offer a few coupons.

Tasting rooms in town save driving but you miss the experience

Napa, Yountville, Healdsburg, Sutter Creek, Murphys, you name it, they all have tasting rooms where you can walk outside your hotel or B&B and never get into a car to taste a plethora of wines. The one thing these tasting rooms lack is wine country. You came to see vineyards, wine barrels, fermenting tanks, and bottling lines. Go to a working winery and take in the sounds and smells of the wine country.

The Designated Driver

The Highway Patrol is increasing their patrols everywhere in wine country. Small towns have the local sheriff on the prowl. DUI related costs can add up to $10,000. Hire a limo, take Platypus, or have a driver that will not drink a drop.

Put the wine club on hold

Just about every winery has a wine club and joining one is always a temptation, especially when you have imbided just a tad too much. Take the brochure home with you and think about it. Wine clubs are a big source of income for the wineries. You pay top dollar for the wine even though you may get a so-called 10 to 20 percent discount. Wineries sell their wine at the top retail price, plus you always have shipping costs.

Big crowds at popular tasting rooms – avoid them

On weekends all the popular wineries are going to be crowded, often layers deep with people anxious to taste. Hit the tasting rooms before noon and you will likely find them sparse. Get off the beaten path for the afternoon and there will be fewer crowds to contend with. The best way to avoid the big crowds is to travel to wine country during the week.

Make your reservations for lodging and restaurants well in advance

This is especially true for the popular holidays, the summer season, and harvest time. Book as early as possible, you can always cancel at most lodging establishments a few days before without a penalty fee.

Experience a mix of wineries

There are many types and styles of wineries ranging from the small, single family-owned wineries to huge multi-owned wineries like Constellation, Jackson Wines, Treasure Wine Estates, and Gallo. Get a feel for both. Some have elaborate tasting rooms filled with merchandise, while the very small winery might have a tasting bar set up in their barrel room. You can search for different styles of wineries on the Winery Finder/Trip Planner.

Pace yourself

Enjoy the wine country lifestyle. We recommend visiting three wineries max in one day. Mesh in a picnic lunch at a winery and relax for an hour or more and take in the beauty of wine country.

Avoid driving to restaurants

Find lodging within walking distance of good restaurants or check with the hotel for taxi service. This way all can enjoy, without worries, the wonderful wine produced in the wine country you are visiting.

Direct your Limo driver

If you hire a Limo driver, be sure to hand the driver your itinerary. In many cases Limo drivers will try and steer you to their favorite wineries. Many wineries require reservations for Limo groups, so make sure they know your group is coming.
It’s a good idea to bring plastic spit cups with you to remind that you don’t have to drink the whole amount poured into your glass.

Plan you trip with Wine Country Getaways

Use our handy Trip Planner to find and map wineries. Consult our lodging, restaurant, picnic and deli pages to find our top recommendations.  Pick one of our wine trails.

Ann Kraemer, Master Vineyard Manager and Yorba Wines

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Yorba Wine Tasting

Yorba Tasting Room – 51 Hanford Street in Sutter Creek

Ann Kraemer – Shake Ridge Ranch and Yorba Wines

This is an update to an article I wrote five years ago about our tour through what is now regarded as one of the top vineyards in California, Ann Kraemer’s Shake Ridge Vineyards. Fast forward five years, and Ann Kraemer now has a successful tasting room in Sutter Creek. The Yorba wine tasting room is at 51 Hanford Street. We stopped in Thursday while visiting the Amador wine area and found the tasting room alive and well with a throng of folks tasting Yorba wines, along with catered food from Lucy’s Spice Box. Ann Kraemer sells 80% of her Shake Ridge fruit to various winemakers in California. She keeps 20% for the Yorba label. These wines are held from release at least two years or longer than the average release time for most wineries. The idea behind Ann’s late release is to showcase to winemakers the amazing quality and complexity that is possible from the grapes grown at Shake Ridge Ranch. Not only are these wines excellent in quality, the prices are very reasonable. The tasting room is open Thursday 12-7, Friday to Monday 12-5. If you are in the quaint town of Sutter Creek, stop in at the Yorba tasting room.

Originally posted in March of 2010

A few weeks back we had the chance to visit Ann Kraemer at her beautiful hillside vineyards on Shake Ridge Ranch in Amador County. What a pleasure it was to be with one of the most respected vineyard managers in the world of wine. Ann has been at the business of vineyard management for 19 years. Most of that has been working for others, and now that she’s at Shake Ridge she has fulfilled a dream to run her vineyards and reap the rewards of her vast experience.

Ann took us on a wonderful one-hour vineyard walk through the Shake Ridge Vineyards. Ann and her family purchased the ranch in 2001. It took Ann over a year to plan the vineyard. Soil was analyzed from six-foot deep pits dug at various locations. Which grapes would grow best and exactly where on the ranch would favor the growing conditions for a particular grape? For example, Barbera loves heat, so the orientation for those vines is on west-facing slopes. Petite Sirah was planted in the lower spots of the vineyard where the soil is more fertile and cooler. At the same time, Ann wanted to make sure she preserved the beauty of the ranch. As you can see from the photo, the oak trees have been preserved and add a wonderful attractiveness to the hillside vineyards.

ann kraemer shake ridge

Shake Ridge Ranch in the hills above Sutter Creek

There are 34 acres planted on the 185-acre ranch, with Zinfandel and Syrah making up the largest plots and Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, Monvedre, Granache and Viognier making up the smaller plots. Thirty percent of the vines are used for Ann’s Yorba label; the rest of the grapes are sold to ten different winemakers. Each winemaker has a specific plot and Ann works closely with each winemaker to make critical vineyard management decisions. In a week or so after our meeting with Ann, she was to meet with each winemaker to discuss pruning strategies. Pruning was scheduled for roughly two weeks after our visit. That is a bit late in the year but Ann points out that the longer she can delay pruning the longer she can delay bud break, giving her an added protection against frost. There is no frost protection that Ann uses, just good old Mother Nature. “Cold air runs downhill like water, so at the low spots we don’t plant vines.”

Ann Kraemer

Ann Kraemer – our walk included wine tasting stations

Before purchasing Shake Ridge she did vineyard management for Cuvaison, Clos Pegase, Swanson, Domain Chandon and others. She has consulted for some of the biggest names, such as Stagecoach and Shafer. She is a master at her craft and you really get a sense of her passion and commitment to grow the best grapes for the soil and the land that she cherishes.

Her Yorba wines are made by Ken Bernards of Ancien fame. From our walking tour we are sure that Ken Bernards loves making wine for Ann. The old adage “wine is made in the vineyards”could not be more true is this case. The wines are absolutely delicious, elegant, and nicely priced for the quality of the wines.

Additional Sutter Creek Information

Top Wine Country Photographs 2010

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During 2010 we logged 4800 miles in our car visiting wineries in California. We spent a week in Washington state visiting wineries and attending the 3rd Annual Wine Bloggers Conference. In late September we ventured off to France for a three-week stay. We rented a house in the village of Obernai in the Alsatian region and explored the villages and wineries along the Alsace Wine Route. Then it was off to the Champagne region and a week’s stay in a beautiful old country home in the vineyards in the small village of Le Breuil. What a great year of tasting delicious wines and taking photographs of the all the beautiful wine regions we visited. These are our favorite wine country photographs from the year 2010.

Kick Ranch Vineyard and Wine Bloggers Conferencing

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I’m attending the first annual North American Wine Blogger Conference in Sonoma County. The event has attracted 170 wine bloggers and we have been wining and dining from the get go. The opening event was a wine tasting and lunch held in the vineyards at the beautiful Kick Ranch Vineyards.

Kick Ranch is located in Sonoma’s Rincon Valley at the foot of Spring Mountain off Calistoga Road. It is a spectacular plot of vineyards with a great view of Sonoma County. Some very well-known wineries such as Paul Hobbs, Rosenblum, and Lynmar source their grapes from Kick Ranch. There are also a number of very small wineries, some just emerging, that have contracts with Kick Ranch.

Twelve wineries were represented at the luncheon, pouring wines all made from Kick Ranch vines. We enjoyed all the wines we tasted but a few were really impressive.

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CALIFORNIA WINE COUNTRY REGIONS:

Carneros • Livermore • Lodi • Mendocino • Monterey • Napa Valley • Paso Robles • Santa Barbara County • Santa Cruz Mts. • Sierra Foothills • Russian River • Sonoma Valley

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