Best Wineries for Wine Tasting in Napa
Top 25 Wineries
Fall 2021: Best Bay Area Wineries to Visit
Everyone knows that fall is the best time of year to go wine tasting. The vineyards turn brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow as they transition from harvest time to their annual dormancy. Wineries have the pungent smell of fermentation in the air. During this last gasp of Bay Area "summer," there's nothing more pleasant than sitting outdoors in Wine Country with a scenic view.
Our latest update of this Top 25 Wineries list pays special attention to the season, featuring spots that are especially rewarding to visit in the fall. There's Mount Eden Vineyards, a gem in the South Bay that requires a long drive up a beautiful mountain — and is more than worth it, with some of the best, most age-worthy wines around. There's the brand-new Marine Layer Wines, a chic tasting room on the downtown Healdsburg square, where you can try balanced Sonoma Coast wines alongside snacks from the hotly anticipated new restaurant Little Saint. And this update includes some hidden-gem estates like Preston, a sprawling property with organic vegetable farms alongside the vineyards, to capture the laid-back, bucolic charm that our local wine regions can offer.
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Winery features
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Abbot's Passage Winery
777 Madrone Rd., Glen Ellen
A modern experience, with crafts, bocce and refreshing sips, surrounded by historic vines.
The owner of Abbot's Passage, Katie Bundschu, may be better known for her association with her family's winery, Gundlach Bundschu, one of the most popular stops for winery tourists in the region. Yet her own space feels close to the platonic ideal of a Wine Country tasting room, with cozy, private-feeling lounge areas and bocce courts sprinkled throughout an 80-year-old vineyard. In 2020, after several years of operating a small tasting room for Abbot's Passage in the downtown Sonoma square, Bundschu bought this spacious winery property in Glen Ellen, which was formerly occupied by Valley of the Moon Winery, and has added a retail shop with clothing and decorative home wares, focused on women producers. It's rare at a tasting room to get such an up-close-and-personal view of historic vines like these. Among the highlights of the flight is the Sightline, a zippy white made mostly of Chenin Blanc and Verdejo, which tastes like a fresh, juicy pear. There's a surprise treat at the end of the flight: a light cocktail made from white wine, soda water and fruit shrub. Served ice-cold in a Nick and Nora glass, it's an excellent palate cleanser for your next wine tasting.
Tasting fee: $40
Phone: 707-939-3017
Website: abbotspassage.com
Antica Napa Valley
3700 Soda Canyon Rd., Napa
A scenic, and surprisingly accessible, mountaintop hideaway from one of Italy's most famous winemaking families.
Some of Napa Valley's most rewarding wine tasting experiences are in the hillsides, at wineries high above the hustle and bustle of the valley floor. But most of the time, hillside wineries have strict limits on their visitor capacities, and they tend to charge more for tastings. That's why Antica Napa Valley, perched at 1,600 feet elevation on Atlas Peak, is such a gem. The large estate is owned by the Antinori family, whose eponymous company is one of the most famous wineries in Italy. ("Antica" is a portmanteau of "Antinori" and "California.") The visitor capacity is limited here, so try to make a reservation a few weeks in advance. Once you're here, the experience is exceedingly generous. For $45, you'll get a private, guided tasting of four Antica wines and a hearty spread of cheese, fruit, salami and bread. Block off some time for this visit so that you can wander around the grounds with a glass of the butterscotchy Chardonnay or the supple Mountain Select Cabernet Sauvignon and take in the breathtaking views.
Tasting fee: $45
Phone: 707-257-8700
Website: anticanapavalley.com
Chronicle coverage of this winery
Ashes & Diamonds Winery
4130 Howard Ln., Napa
The winery that's trying to bring some midcentury cool back to Napa.
With its bright-white exterior, zigzagging roof and midcentury-modern digs, Ashes & Diamonds Winery looks like something you'd see in Palm Springs, not Napa Valley. That's intentional: The winery is going after a younger, hipper audience that might have written off Napa wines as something only their parents would drink. A survey of the crowd on any given day will make it clear that the strategy is working. The wines are solid, modeled on a rustic style of winemaking that was prominent in California a half-century ago. There are several showpiece, single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons from Napa Valley's hillsides, plus a rich Sauvignon Blanc blend and a fruity rosé. The tasting options here aren't cheap. But then again, almost nothing in Napa is, and the hearty, colorful snacks on offer make it one of the best wineries in town for a hungry traveler.
Tasting fee: $75
Phone: 707-666-4777
Website: ashesdiamonds.com
Chronicle coverage of this winery • More
Broc Cellars
1300 Fifth St., Berkeley
Thrilling natural wines in urban Berkeley.
Broc Cellars has long been one of the leading producers of boundary-pushing wine in California — and more than 15 years after launching, winemaker Chris Brockway's creations remain as intriguing as ever. From neon-pink rosés to translucent, ruby-hued reds, the wines here are unfailingly refreshing. Although the winery occupies a small, warehouse-like space in industrial West Berkeley, it has carved out a charming tasting room with wooden booths indoors and a botanical-inflected patio outdoors. Come for a glass during happy hour on Friday (4-7 p.m.), designed to be friendly to walk-ins, or for a leisurely afternoon wine flight on the weekends. The tasty snacks — creamy dips, olives, tinned fish — come from the excellent Berkeley cafe Standard Fare. If it's available, don't miss the Michael Mara Vineyard Chardonnay, a deeply complex rendition of this often-maligned grape variety.
Tasting fee: $10
Phone: 510-424-7323
Website: broccellars.com
Chronicle coverage of this winery • More
Corison Winery
987 St. Helena Hwy., St. Helena
The holy grail of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
All devotees of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon will eventually find their way to Corison. Since 1987, winemaker Cathy Corison has made some of the most awe-inspiring wines in the valley, though it took a long time for her reticent bottlings to get as much attention as the flashier, more powerful Cabs being made at other Napa wineries. All tastings here begin with a guide through the Kronos Vineyard, directly behind the winery, where the grapes for Corison's top wine grow. The Corison Cabernets — elegant, long and graceful, often recalling raspberries and fresh herbs — are the highlights here, but the basic tasting also includes the winery's eclectic Gewurztraminer and a striking Syrah from the Sunbasket Vineyard.
Tasting fee: $55
Phone: 707-963-0826
Website: corison.com
Chronicle coverage of this winery
Faust Wines
2867 St. Helena Hwy., St. Helena
Modern Napa Cabernet in a gothic Victorian manor.
Come for the vibe, stay for the wine. The Faust Haus, which opened in summer 2020, is one of Napa Valley's most stylized tasting rooms. A refurbished 1870s Victorian mansion has been outfitted with lavish interiors meant to recall the sensual pleasures sought by its namesake, Dr. Faustus, the literary character who made a pact with the devil. Flights of Faust wines, dominated by plush Cabernet Sauvignons, are served alongside small bites like veggies with tzatziki dip in the shaded outdoor patio areas, all of them overlooking terraced vineyards and busy Highway 29 in St. Helena. Like Flowers, Faust's sister winery in Healdsburg, it's highly Instagrammable. (Psst: The basement of the mansion has a stone-walled speakeasy, purportedly haunted.)
Tasting fee: $55
Phone: 707-200-2560
Website: faustwines.com
Chronicle coverage of this winery
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Best Wineries for Wine Tasting in Napa
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