Napa County

You don’t see many log cabins in Napa Wine country, and you certainly don’t see many stuffed bears or boar heads, but that’s only because you haven’t visited the William Harrison tasting room. The general store feel of this lesser-known family owned winery sports a relaxed and casual vibe. While the owner sprouts from an Italian winemaking family, the tasting counter feels homegrown American. Try the Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and Estate Cabernet Franc, and ask the tasting room guy if he has time to give you a tour.

Housed in an ivy-covered, French-chateau styles stone building, the family owned Cosentino winery continues to produce a wide variety of wines. While zinfandel comprises much of the 70,000 case production, visitors to their just-north-of-Yountville tasting room can sidle up to the copper counter and try a pinot grigio, chardonnay, cab, sangiovese, pinot noir or merlot. Winemaker Mitch Consentino prides himself on producing a wide variety of artisanal wines using traditional methods.

Folie a Deaux is a psychiatric term that refers to two people sharing the same delusional ideas. Perhaps a whimsical name for a winery, but appropriate if the founders of the winery happen to both be psychology professionals. While the original couple no longer own the winery, their legacy lives on in the Rorschach dancers on the logo. The tasting room sports a variety of wines for tasting, including several Menage a Trois blends (one white, one red, one rose) as well as a Napa Cellars merlot, zin and sauvignon blanc. The available picnic tables make this stop particularly appealing for those who’ve purchased lunch vittles from the Oakville Grocery up the road, and need a place to nosh.

Tucked away in a charming plaza, alongside art galleries and a custom jeweler, Hendricks tasting room, which features hope & grace wines, offers a quaint tasting counter, a handful of antiques, and two oil paintings worthy of contemplation. Winemaker Charles Hendricks has served as a Napa consultant for more than two decades, and while he’s known for making cabernet, he loves his pinot. Sourcing his fruit from Napa (cab) and the Santa Lucia Highlands (pinot) and naming the wine after his two daughters, Hendricks released his first wines with the 2001 vintage. Today, they make about 1800 cases, available primarily in the tasting room and at various high end restaurants.

Visitors to the Peju tasting room enjoy several unique experiences. They are walked through a systematic tasting, with an attendee carefully pouring and explaining as they go, while not being distracted by newcomers. If they wander into the newest wing of the tasting space, they can marvel at the exquisite quartzite floors that reportedly echo the owner’s impression of a stone Persian rug. Owner Tony Peju, originally of Iran, and his Austrian born wife, founded the winery in the mid-1980s after years of running a successful high end landscaping business. Their devotion to fine art, sculpture, and gardens is apparent as soon as one enters the drive, as the carefully pruned Sycamore trees beckon you in. Lush gardens and an antique stained glass window, coupled with their open-late reputation (unlike many of their neighbors, Peju’s doors are open until 6pm) no doubt help make this one of the most profitable tasting rooms in Napa.

The first thought that comes to mind as you pull into the driveway of Saddleback Cellars may be “Hmm. Perhaps they’re not open.” The nondescript, rustic tasting room, tucked into one corner of their winery, is marked only by a small sign and an open door. Once inside though, a cozy wooden table and tasting counter, as well as a set of longhorns, come into view, and all doubts evaporate. The winemaker, Nils Venge, is something of a Napa Legend, having won the honor of producing Napa’s first 100 point Parker wine (the 1985 Groth Reserve) and today, he’s often seen hanging around the winery, happy to meet and greet visitors or help out on a bottling line.

For anyone who’s studied up on the key moments in Napa wine history, the Spurrier tasting of 1976 sits in high relief. The Paris tasting was a bona fide pitting of French against American wines, organized to showcase the superior quality of the French winemaking talent. To everyone’s surprise, the winner of the blind tasting was none other than the 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars SLV Cabernet Sauvignon. While the winery has recently passed into new ownership (a joint venture between the Tuscan Antinori family and Ste Michelle Wine Estates), the SLV is still going strong; its current vintage is available in their tasting room as part of their Estate Tasting.

Finally, for those seeking a truly elegant wine country setting for an event or wedding, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is one of the few Napa venues set up to host weddings; they also offer cooking classes and wine and food pairing programs that feature both current releases and library wines (wonder if they have any of the 1973 SLV left?).

Napa history buffs will appreciate the status of Regusci Winery as a “ghost winery,” that is, one that has its roots in the early Napa winemaking of the 19th century. Originally built in 1878 by one Terrill Grigsby, the winery was purchased by the family of its current owners in 1932. It survived the difficult economic and anti-alcohol periods of the early 20th century as a ranch, growing crops such as corn and prunes and raising livestock in addition to grapes. Today, the son and grandson of the original Regusci owner have returned to full time wine production. The tasting room, housed next to the original three story stone building, enjoys a rich, recycled-wood-centric feel thanks to the several rough hewn display tables and barrel-stave tasting bar. Visitors can enjoy a pour of a rich cabernet, and then stroll among the olive and citrus trees, or sit at one of the convenient outdoor tables.

The tasting space at Judd’s Hill is unique in that (1) it’s not really a tasting room, it’s more like a dining room table in an unusually cozy conference room and (2) it isn’t housed in your typical Napa Valley winery. It’s actually part of a larger MicroCrush facility that helps ambitious wine lovers produce as little as one barrel of their own juice. Judd's Hil was founded and is run by a family that’s been involved in Napa winemaking for more than 30 years. Art Finkelstein, a founder of the well-known Whitehall Lane winery, decided in the late 1980s to forego the large production lifestyle and get back to his roots -- a hands on role in winemaking. The result was Judd's Hill, which today still produces fewer than 3,000 cases of their private label cab, zin, chardonnay and pinot.