TASTEMAKERS
California wineries you've seen in movies and TV
17 wineries
California wine country has been playing itself on screen since 1981. Sometimes the winery appears under its own name, sometimes it stands in for an estate that never existed, and in one case a Victorian on Spring Mountain became the face of a fictional wine dynasty for most of a decade. One film moved so much Pinot Noir that growers still talk about it. The useful part is that these are not sets. Most of them still pour, so you can book a tasting where the camera was. In this guide you'll find the California wineries used in Bottle Shock, Sideways, A Walk in the Clouds, Wine Country, The Parent Trap, and Falcon Crest, what was shot at each one, and which ones you can actually get into.
01
Bottle Shock (2008)
Chateau Montelena in Calistoga is the winery the film is about. The 1973 Chardonnay that took first place at the 1976 Paris Tasting was made here, in a stone building that went up in 1888, and walk-in tastings still run at the main bar. The production filmed elsewhere too. Kunde Family Estate in Kenwood supplied the Dunfillan ruins on its Sonoma Valley property, which stood in for the Paris tasting competition and the father and son boxing scenes. Buena Vista in Sonoma also appears. It was founded in 1857, its Press House dates to 1862, and it sits about a mile from Sonoma Square.
02
Sideways (2004)
Sideways shot on location in Santa Barbara County, and the four wineries it used are still the reason people drive the Santa Ynez trail. Sanford is the first stop Miles and Jack make, the scene where Miles explains how to look at a wine and Jack drinks it while chewing gum. Fess Parker plays Frass Canyon, the invented winery where Miles learns his book will not be published and goes at the spit bucket. Foxen is the split screen, where the two of them pour themselves enormous glasses the second the pourer turns her back. Kalyra is where Jack meets Stephanie. All four still pour, and they sit close enough together to do in an afternoon.
03
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)
The fictional Las Nubes estate was assembled out of five real Napa wineries. The Rhine House at Beringer Vineyards plays the Aragon family home. The Redwood Cellar at Charles Krug appears too, at the oldest winery in Napa Valley, founded in 1861. Up on the mountain, Mayacamas Vineyards, making wine since 1889, and Mount Veeder Winery supplied the high-elevation vineyard land. Duckhorn Vineyards in St. Helena is the fifth.
Two caveats if you are planning around this one. Duckhorn closed in April 2026 for a year of renovation and reopens in April 2027, with tastings running at Paraduxx in the meantime. Mount Veeder Winery has no tasting room. That leaves Beringer, Charles Krug and Mayacamas as the three you can visit today, and Beringer and Charles Krug are a few minutes apart on the same road.
04
Wine Country (2019)
The Netflix film shot at three wineries inside a thirty minute radius. Artesa sits on a Carneros hilltop with the building set into the hillside and a Spanish winemaking line that runs back to 1551. Quintessa provided the cave tunnels. It is a 280 acre Rutherford estate with 160 acres of vines across 26 blocks, all farmed organically and Biodynamically. Baldacci Family Vineyards on the Silverado Trail played the film's fictional organic winery, and has been family run since Thomas and Brenda Baldacci founded it in 1998.
05
The Parent Trap (1998)
Staglin Family Vineyard in Rutherford was Nick Parker's home, the vineyard Hallie comes back to. The Staglins farm 61 organically grown acres and age small-batch Cabernet in caves under the property. Visits are by appointment only and wine club and mailing list members get first access, so this is the one to plan furthest ahead.
06
Falcon Crest (1981 to 1990)
Villa Miravalle at Spring Mountain Vineyard in St. Helena was the exterior of the Falcon Crest mansion. Tiburcio Parrott built it in 1884, and the spires, wraparound verandas, stained glass and six-story cupola that made it read as a wine dynasty on television are the house's own. Crews came up for six weeks each summer through the show's Napa years, and the last two seasons, 1988 to 1990, were shot in Los Angeles instead. The estate changed hands in 2023. It runs tastings and a 90 minute tour and tasting by reservation, and those fill weeks out.
