This tour went above and beyond to make the Napa experience personal. This is my 2nd tour of the wine country and will recommend this to all my friends who come out this way...
Frank, our guide, and the tour, were both excellent. After all parties were promptly picked up, he began with a spot near the Golden Gate for a photo op which ended up being our favorite bridge photo after a week vacation which included biking the bridge. He shared his great knowledge of San Francisco and Napa Valley during the ride, asked for everyone's input on destinations, and managed expectations well ex - we won't be able to return to wineries throughout the trip, so if you would like to purchase a bottle there you should do so during the tasting. Ultimately, we stuck with the itinerary he had planned and were very pleased. He even knew the best menu items at our lunch spot mid-day!
The one-star deduction - Despite what it said in the description, being dropped off in Sausalito after the tour was not an option on our trip.
This tour is largely influenced by the quality of your guide, and Frank was top notch. We'd definitely recommend it!
This tour was fantastic. We were lucky enough to have a small vehicle and there were only 4 of us on the tour, so this gave us the flexibility to spend as much time as we liked at each wine estate and to come to an agreement with our tour guide and among ourselves, as to which wine farms we would like to visit and where we would like to have lunch etc.
Our tour guide was fantastic! He was friendly, helpful and very knowledgeable about the area and about the best wine estates to visit. We visited some in the Nappa Valley and some in Sonoma Valley, and we stopped for lunch in the beautiful little town of Yountville, which has a few fanstastic restaurants, two or more of which are Michelin starred, like French Laundry. We managed to obtain a table at a beautiful Italian restaurant called Bottega, which had fantastic food and very friendly staff.
We visited St Francis Wine Estate which was an amazing experience. We tasted many excellent wines and learnt a great deal about their estate and about Californian wine in general. We then visited Sunce tasting room, where we were able to taste a wide variety of excellent wines. We also visited Beaulieu estate and Carneros Sparkling Wine Estate which was magnificent and had superb views. We had a wonderful tasting of their sparkling wines - I really recommend this visit to Carneros! All in all a wonderful tour and an excellent way of seeing the Winelands. The countryside is really beautiful, apart from the wines. Cannot fault the tour or the guide at all ! Excellent value for money. Even if we had had the full complement of people, one really gets the benefit of a semi- private tour for little more than the cost of a normal tour. It is so much more enjoyable to move around without a huge group of people on a tour bus.