Small-Group Wine-Tasting Tour through Sonoma Valley in Napa & Sonoma booking from $129.69

Small-Group Wine-Tasting Tour through Sonoma Valley

Overview

Join us on a full-day, small-group wine tour of the Spectacular Sonoma Valley wine country! You’ll visit three charming, back roads wineries and be served a picnic lunch in an idyllic winery setting. Your tour guide will tell fascinating stories and share many interesting tidbits about local history, culture and wine making. Our specialty is intimate, light hearted and truly memorable experiences. Your guide will set up a tasty picnic lunch for you at a picturesque winery. Once the tour concludes, you will be dropped off from where you were picked up. The tour typically has 8-12 guests on board.

City: Napa & Sonoma

Tue 24 Dec

Other dates

You can choose the date already on the booking website

Starting at $129.69

Make a reservation

Tue 24 Dec

Starting at $129.69

Make a reservation

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What's Included

3 winery visits

Hotel pickup and drop-off within tour region (Not San Francisco)

Bottled water

Picnic lunch

Lunch

Driver Tour Guide

Transport by small shuttle

Additional Info

Service animals allowed
Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Minimum age is 21 years
A maximum of 8 people per booking
Please call local operator after booking to provide a mobile phone number and an email address
Please advise any specific dietary requirements at time of booking
Please advise any specific dietary requirements at time of booking
Gratuity for the guide (Suggested 15-20%) per person; Parties of 5 or more traveling together are considered a large party and will have a 15% gratuity charged for the tour guide at the end of the tour.
Face masks required for guides in public areas
Face masks provided for travellers
Hand sanitiser available to travellers and staff
Social distancing enforced throughout experience
Transportation vehicles regularly sanitised
Guides required to regularly wash hands
We are showing awesome (and COVID-safe) wine tours! Vehicles are frequently sanitized. Hand sanitizer on bus. Per CDC transportation guidelines, we recommend guests wear masks on board the tour shuttle. Safe, but still really fun.

What To Expect

Sonoma Valley

Your tour will begin with pickup from your Sonoma area hotel. Depending on where you are staying will define the tour region that you will be visiting. If your accommodations are outside of the winery region, you can arrange to meet us a general meeting spot. You’ll visit three charming, backroads wineries and be served a picnic lunch in an idyllic winery setting. Your tour guide will tell fascinating stories and share many interesting tidbits about local history, culture and wine making. This is not a smarmy or touristy activity. Our specialty is intimate, light-hearted and truly memorable. This tour is sure to entertain with a very approachable and easy-going style. Discover and savor new experiences tasting some of the world’s most celebrated wines. Our typical guest is not necessarily a wine expert but keen to learn a bit about wine and wine-making, and is open to sharing the experience with a few other like-minded wine adventurers.

Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Traveler Photos

Reviews (50)

samd113

Jun 2021

Unfortunately, my husband and I did not enjoy the tour we took with Platypus. I was greatly looking forward to learning a little bit about wine while getting to relax and enjoy the wine and the scenery. However, this was not the case. The tour first took us to Lassiter winery. The woman at Lassiter who poured the wines lectured us for an hour. We learned every nitty gritty detail of the wines, and then some. I felt like I was in a college course about wines. I mean, we even sat through a story about the previous owner of a train pictured on one of the wine bottles for 15 minutes. I was hoping we would be able to enjoy how beautiful their property was, but instead we sat and were lectured for what seemed like forever. I was so bored I was almost in tears. When the woman was finally done talking, the tour guide jumped in with his own stories. We didn't even have a chance to get to know the other people on the wine tour at all. To top it off, we went through all this without so much as a full glass of wine. At least if we were going to have to listen to hours of people talking, give us a full pour! Next we went to Deerfield. I was hoping the tour would get better, but it did not. At this winery we ate our lunch in the cave. Who wants to eat in a cave when you have the beautiful scenery of Sonoma?! We did a tasting at Deerfield, and thankfully the man pouring the wines did not talk as much as the woman from Lassiter. However, the tour guide seemed to take this as his opportunity to speak at length about everything he knew about wine (which is... extensive). Worse, he didn't join our group at the table to talk, but stood awkwardly behind me for 30 minutes lecturing. Again, we didn't really have a chance to speak to anyone on our tour. After two excruciatingly boring tastings, my husband and I couldn't take anymore. We asked to be dropped off at our hotel. This was our anniversary, and it was honestly the least fun thing we could have done for it. What I imagined would be a relaxing afternoon, enjoying wine, learning *a little bit*, turned into a horribly boring college course on wine with barely any wine. Everyone I have spoken to who took a wine tour in Sonoma seems to have enjoyed their tour thoroughly. I don't know if we just got a dud of a tour, but this was miserable for us. I would never recommend anyone take a platypus wine tour after the experience we had. I would suggest that either: a. this tour be rebranded as an educational tour with a few tastings, not a wine tour or b. have the tour guide moderate the tour better, so participants can enjoy more wine, more socializing with each other, and less lecturing. We had such a limited time in Sonoma, and I am so disappointed we decided to use one of our days on this tour.

Response from Host

Jul 2021

Thanks for your review, Sam. Again, I'm very sorry we failed to do better for you on this tour. Since we have conversed about this situation, and I refunded your tour fees, I won't go into it further. Our tour guide will be much more aware in the future. Best wishes!

staceyd5496

Jun 2021

This was a great tour. Our guide, Walt, did a great job telling us additional information about the wineries! Would go on this trip again!

Response from Host

Jul 2021

Hey Stacey: Glad you loved Walt's tour! I have been a fan of his for many years, and he's proven to be an excellent tour guide; super-chill, but always friendly and informative, too. Thanks for taking our tour, and thanks also, for sharing your feedback!

Even S

Oct 2020

Linda was an excellent guide. Very personable, accommodating and concerned for an enjoyable experience. I appreciated the negotiated tasting rates and I don’t believe that affected our tour experience. In fact they went out of their way to accommodate my wife’s taste for sweet wines. Because we ran ahead of schedule, I also appreciate that Linda was able and willing to fit an extra Winery into our itinerary. Quite entertaining and tasty.

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Small-Group Wine-Tasting Tour through Sonoma Valley

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