About Harvest Wine Tours
Michael Weiner started visiting Napa and Sonoma in 1999 with nothing more than a guidebook. After a rough first trip stopping wherever a Tasting Today sign happened to be posted, he came back the following year having spent 30 hours researching in advance. The difference was immediate, and some of the wineries he visited even asked how he had found them.
Researching wineries became a passion after that. The advice hasn't changed since: don't just drive around, have a plan.
Every winery on a Harvest Wine Tours itinerary is scored on three things: quality of the wine, ambiance of the property, and how the staff treats visitors. Michael has personally visited more than 250 wineries across Napa and Sonoma over more than 20 years, reading through winery guides along the way, including all eight editions of The California Directory of Wineries.
The tours lean toward small, family owned boutique wineries that are off the beaten path just as often as they feature the well known names. That mix, plus routes planned to cut down on drive time, is what turns a wine country visit into an actual day of wine tasting instead of a day of driving between wineries.
A well planned wine tour is about more than picking great wineries. Location matters too, so a day doesn't turn into more time driving than tasting. Every stop on a Harvest Wine Tours itinerary is chosen with that in mind.
Flexibility matters just as much. Stay longer at a winery worth staying at, add one in, or skip one that isn't working for the group.
Every winery recommended can be found on the internet, in a guidebook, or in a magazine somewhere. The value isn't secret access. It's more than 20 years spent narrowing hundreds of options down to the ones actually worth the stop.
Reservations are essential at most wineries today, so the best advice is still the simplest: plan ahead rather than hoping for a walk-in tasting. That's the idea behind Ready-Made and Customized DIY tours. The research is already done.