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Posted by: plumdumplings on 2009-08-03, 23:37:36
First off - are you all 21? You will get carded wine tasting, so don't waste your money if that's an issue. Napa / Sonoma would probably be expensive. There are few reasonably priced hotels and wine tastings are getting more expensive. I would suggest either the Central Coast of California or Oregon's Willamette Valley. I was just in Willamette and there are some motel type accommodations in McMinville. The wine area is small enough that you can stay in one place and day trip to 5 or 6 wineries a day. Prices on tastings ranged from free (not many are free) to $15 at the better wineries. It is perfectly acceptable to share a tasting. It will save you money and keep you from getting too drunk. It's been a few years since I did Central California, but there are plenty of motels in the $50 price range scattered about. The tastings were rarely more than $5 (though they could have gone up in the past couple years). I think each winery offered more wines than in Oregon - mostly because they are experimenting with more varietals and more wines. They also let you keep their really good logo glasses (don't know if they still do, but it was fun - they didn't do that in Oregon). One really good thing about that type of trip and saving money is that you get to picnic! The wineries in Willamette and Central CA almost all have gorgeous picnic areas with jaw-dropping views. You shouldn't need to do too much planning - just get a list of wineries and a map and find out when things are open (lots of wineries in Willamette are closed Mon and Tues). Not sure how big a group you will be - if it's 4 people, you won't have problems, if it's 6 or more, they may request that you book time in the tasting room (they can be really small). That's not a bad thing, because you can probably book a tour or two - so you can walk around a vineyard and a winery and learn about the process. Some tours are even free . If there's a wine festival or something going on, you'd want to pre-book a room, but we did Central CA for a week with nothing booked in advance - part of the adventure. Good websites to start with: sbcountywines.com/ willamettewines.com/ |
