Napa Valley
TASTEMAKERS
Budget Wine Tastings in Napa and Sonoma
From Spill
23 wineries
Explore all Napa And Sonoma wineries →01
The cheap tasting is not the worse tasting
Ninety nine wineries across Napa and Sonoma pour for twenty five dollars or less. Four pour for nothing at all. That is not a rounding error at the bottom of the market, it is most of a trip.
What twenty five dollars buys is usually a smaller room. Fewer staff, no reservation system, often the person who made the wine standing behind the bar. The hundred dollar tastings are buying you a terrace and a host. Sometimes that is what you want. Often it is not.
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The four that pour for free
RD Winery in Napa was founded in 2010 by Nguyen Van Dong and builds its wines around food. Freemark Abbey in St. Helena has been going since 1886, which makes a no-charge tasting there the single strangest bargain in the valley.
Over in Sonoma, Meadowcroft pours small-batch vineyard-designated wines and has a picnic area, and Dutton Goldfield in Sebastopol came out of a farmer and a winemaker teaming up in 1998.
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Napa under twenty five
Brasswood starts at five dollars just north of St. Helena. Olivia Brion and Julien Fayard both open at ten, and Fayard trained under Philippe Melka, which is not a ten dollar credential.
Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards has been making Cabernet in St. Helena since 1983 and starts at ten. Black Cat Vineyard in Coombsville opens at fifteen. Beaulieu Vineyard has been shaping the valley since 1900 and starts at twenty.
Castello di Amorosa starts at twenty five, which means the castle is on this list too.
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Sonoma under twenty five
Sonoma is where the number really lives. Desire Lines opens at five in Geyserville. Chris Hamilton Cellars in Kenwood starts at nine. David Coffaro makes five thousand cases a year off his own twenty acres and pours for ten.
Jordan Vineyard and Winery starts at ten, which is remarkable for the property it is. Pax Wine Cellars in Sebastopol is ten. GrapeSeed pours inside a gallery in Healdsburg from ten.
Comstock, Stuhlmuller, Homefire, Obsidian, and Kivelstadt all open at fifteen. Imagery in Glen Ellen starts at fifteen and rotates original artwork with every release.
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How to use the number
Do not build a day out of only the cheap rooms. Build it out of two of them and one of the expensive ones, and let the twenty five dollar tastings pay for the hundred dollar one.
Ninety nine of them. You are not going to run out.