http://www.wineroad.com/wineries/ has been a help to me as I've planned our trip. I'd love to see some locals advise on this topic...

As a resident of Sonoma county, I just have to wonder WHY you think tasting should be free ? It does cost money to produce the product, after all.

That said, the vast majority of wineries in both counties charge to taste-SOME will credit you tasting fee
if you purchase a bottle.

The better wines will most likely be
availiable only for a charge and will be presented as Reserve Wines or such.

Mea culpa if you didn't care for my answer, I just don't understand why
anyone expects something for nothing.

R5

Hi razzle....maybe a switch to decaf? If you think about it, the tourist $s brought in by people in search of wines probably more than offsets any publicly borne costs of Sonoma/Napa Counties. Now if you own a winery and feel used and abused by some entitled customers, that is a different rant....

One additional point....having just returned from a trip to your neck of the woods, many of the wineries we visited, do not use distributors at all. That means they sell all their wines at full retail cost and not at a wholesale price that the distributor would pay to them. It makes financial sense for them to give samples of their wares to entice would-be buyers.

Having worked in a tasting room, I can tell you that the majority of people don't buy. They come to taste. Many can't ship home to their states, and/or don't want to carry wine on the plane. Our tasting room easily got 300 people on a Sat. afternoon.... just think how much "free" wine that amounts to. I think people taste more responsibly if they pay at least something. People in Limo's celebrating an upcoming wedding were the worst. They were there to drink and get drunk and make noise... I think most tasting room refund the cost of the taste when you purchase. A taste, which is probably about 4 pours equals a glass of wine. I think its less than a glass in local restaurants.
The wineries do NOT undercut their distributers. They sell their wine at the same price you can buy it at home. You'll get a case discount..and the only really interesting deals are on wine's that are not sold anywhere except the winery. Usually its too small a production to supply all distributers, so the winery markets it themselves.
It is a business, after all.

Well, socialworker, maybe a switch to NOT drinking while driving ?

That IS the rant
of my friends who are winery owners &
tasting room employees-charging for atasting sorts out the folks who are looking for a free party and, more importantly to me as a local, may
be more effective in keeping DUI's off the roads here . They theorize that charging
for a tasting is more likely to bring in the serious buyers and/or folks that want to learn about wine, folks who taste and spit, not come to the winery to get a free buzz.

Another point one of my friends made is that people seem to place a higher value on something they have paid for versus something they
got for free.

The OP specifically asks for input on the GOOD & free or Minimal places to taste. IME, it's an oxymoron to use GOOD & FREE
in the same sentence when talking about wine, as well as indicative of someone who wants to drink, not taste.

If that is the case then I would hope
this person would have a DD or hire a limo-and happily party on.


R5

Thanks for the responses. We were there on week days, so no crowds, split our tastes, ie one glass (w/tiny tastes)shared between 2 people, so no drunkenness and bought at every winery we went to,--except Korbel-- so clearly we saw a different situation.

PS to Kleroux---I was not implying for a minute that they undercut distributors. I was talking about very small wineries who do not use distributors at all, and only sell in their tasting rooms and to their wine clubs...hence all sales are retail.

Small wineries who do not have distributers also don't make very much wine. They still have high costs for labor, licences, and all the heartache that comes with agriculture in general. They can probably least afford to sell cheaply....that is if their wine is any good. But that's where you'll get interesting wines to ship home.

In defense of free tastes: is it not like a free concert in the park turning casual users into lifelong devotees?

It is exposure. When we were young and inexperienced, we learned a lot about wine, but could only "afford" to go to rooms that had free tastings.

Now we're old enough to buy and stay at nice resorts when we go, but had we never had those free tastings, maybe we would not have gone on to order these unknown and now favorite brands when we dine out, or even spend hundreds on bringing friends or ourselves to the area again and again.

Just a thought.

Let's face it -- nothing is free. The cost of those "free" tastings would actually be passed on to those who buy the bottles. Now that hardly seems fair.

If you don't want to buy, that's fine. $5 or $10 to taste a nice selection of wines in a nice tasting room staffed by a helpful, polite person still seems like a good deal to me. As pointed out by another poster (and I can confirm as we just came back from Sonoma)the tasting fee is usually waived if you end up buying a bottle.

kleroux is right on the mark - very small wineries don't use distributors because they don't make much product to begin with. They of all are LEAST able to give out their wine for free. A good example is Ledson - every varietal they make has a production of less than 300 or 400 cases. The tasting fees there were the most expensive we encountered but the tasting room was great, the staff friendly and knowledgable (we spent over an hour there), and we tasted a number of wines off the list when we demonstrated that we were serious about buying. We actually joined their wine club (they sell only through their club and at the winery), bought a case, and they deducted the tasting fees. We paid extra for a reserve tasting at Ferrari-Carano but then again you are drinking better wines with small production and limited distribution.

People who are serious about wines don't mind tasting fees.

I completely agree that you can't get something (especially something good) for nothing. Anyway, the tasting fee is practically free even if you don't get the discount from buying wine if you didn't buy any. They give you the free glasses - and most of them are nice! I have a collection going on at home. It's less than if you were to buy a souvenir! Most of the fees are $5 or $10 bucks. It's not much.

Regarding exposure, it's true that a free concert can convert a non music lover to a music lover but most of the time, those free concerts are given by a sponsor of sorts who picks up the bill for the services rendered. Doesn't really work the same here...but I appreciate the point you were trying to make.

Marketing strategies and economic philosophies aside, I would enjoy seeing some recommendations to the OP regarding the original question: "...GOOD but have minimal or no tasting fees." I would also like to see what variations exist in tasting fees, if anyone is aware. I will check out the web site WFT recommended - thanks!

When we went a few weeks ago none of the wineries we went to applied our fee towards our purchases. Is it becoming a thing of the past, or did we pick the 9 stingiest wineries in Sonoma and Napa Counties?

Many (but not all) wineries apply fee toward purchase. A couple of times I thought they hadn't, but when I asked, they pointed out that they hadn't charged me for the tasting. Sometimes you just have to ask.
Some wineries charge and allow you to keep your glass as a souvenir.
Some just have a fee and that's it.
It doesn't hurt to ask what their policy is.

Very interesting exchange here. I don't mind paying a wine tasting fee, but I do expect it back if I buy. Go to any decent wine store or your local grocery store and you'll see the same wine you just bought (with the exception of small botique wineries) for much less. FYI: Many wineries in the Paso Robles area don't charge and Eberle Winery says they NEVER will. Gary Eberle just thinks it's wrong. So maybe next time come down my way instead!

I believe Benziger was only $10 for the tour and tasting. I think that's pretty minimal for drinks and entertainment. I mean, a crappy movie and a Coke would cost you $15.

I wonder if skidmoc has been monitoring this discussion.

My advice to him/her would be to go somewhere else if tasting fees are an issue. Free tastings are pretty much a thing of the past in Napa and Sonoma but other wine regions still offer, if not free, then very reasonable charges for tasting.

Back in the good old days ('60s & '70s), the wineries in Napa and Sonoma were just being discovered by the American public. Wine was still a novelty and wineries were eager to get people in their doors to offer tastings of their varietals. Free tastings were the norm.

By the mid '80s though, the wine tasting traffic at the main wineries had become too much of good thing and it was essential that the growth of tourism be limited somehow. This is when Mondavi went on reservations, fees for tastings became prevalent, and the county governments took a look at limiting the growth of wineries because of their effect on the land, highways, and community services. At the same time, the Wine Train was starting up and was threatening to bring in hundreds of thousands of riders each year stopping along the route to visit wineries.

Eventually, the Wine Train was stopped (it could only operate as a restaurant), county ordinances required that all new wineries (in Napa County) be by an appointment only basis), and tasting fees were imposed almost everywhere. The police were also cracking down on drunk driving at this time. So, all of these actions were designed to curb the uncontrolled growth of tourism in Napa and Sonoma counties.

Today, because of the high cost of vineyard land, the high cost of living, and the unprecedented demand for wines made in Napa and Sonoma counties, the locally produced wines are very expensive. Unless there's some future major depression in the wine business, the days of free tastings here are over for good.

Today, if you are looking to discover affordable California wines and visit wineries that don't have exorbitant fees for tasting, head for Lake County, the Central Coast, or the Sierra foothills. Or, Oregon, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Chile and Argentina for wines from other regions. I've tasted great wines in all of these places for free or for very moderate charges

Very nice Otis! Short but full of information! That actually explains the fees quite a bit! Thanks for that!

Thank you all for everyone's input. I didn't mean to cause any hard feelings. I spent a brief day in Napa and bought quite a few wines but also spent quite a bit in tasting fees last summer. I didn't find it the norm to have this fee waived with my purchase, in fact only one winery did this. So with this advice I may ask next time if they will waive the fee with my purchase.

Thanks to all!

Napa is a nightmare with limos full of drunken bachelorettes hopping from one place to another getting more buzzed as the day goes by. Wonder why they have fees? DUH?

Here's a thought: Go to a lesser known wine area in CA. My first choice is LODI. Yes, the one John Fogerty sings about...oh lord, stuck in Lodi again....
Lodi produces twice as many grapes as Napa and Sonoma combined.In the old days, the farms shipped the grapes. Now the folks in this small, uninspiring little area have begun to hold onto the premium grapes and have hired winemakers to produce wonderful varietals and and have begun to build beautiful wineries that rival anything that you will see in the valleys to the north. The food and lodging aren't up to the hoity toity standards, but are better in some regards. The Thai restaurants in Lodi are incredible! There are a lot of small production wineries with free tastings and extremely good wine at a fraction of what you would spend in Napa or Sonoma.

As an addendum to this thread, here's a link to some helpful articles in last week's SF Chronicle Wine Section.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artlist.cgi?key=WI&directory=/chronicle/archive/2007/05/25

There's some good recommendations for picnicing in all the major Bay Area wine areas. Included are some ideas for free (or inexpensive) wine tasting. There's also an interesting article on Domaine Chandon's new tasting fee "tyranny".

Not mentionned is a favorite wine area of ours that is often overlooked - Lake County. We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at the Langtry Estate at Guenoc on Mothers' Day. We had the tasting room to ourselves and were the only ones enjoying their wonderful picnic area. They also had a special Merlot for $6 that hit the spot with our picnic lunch. A very special place and only a half hour from Angwin.

However, if you go, watch out for the "limos full of drunken bachelorettes" on your way through Napa Valley.

and don't forget bachelors! Driving bumber to bumber....I mean bummer to bummer!!! LOL

Bookmarking... while I try to find out from a bachelor what "bumber to bumber" traffic means.

Don't forget to watch out for all the crazy's on bicycles who go wine tasting in 100 degree heat and then get back on the road.......

bumb is the new bum!

Come on over to the El Dorado/Amador Co. area for wine tasting. The majority do not charge for wine tasting. My very favorite winery, Sogno, has about 20 wines to taste (for free).

I just visited several this weekend and you can still talk to the winemakers/owners. One winery owner even took us into the barrel area and we tasted Syrah from a barrel made of Missouri oak and another from Michigan oak.

I hate to vist the Napa/Sonoma area now. It is so crowded with people and limos. You have to wait your turn to get to the tasting bar. You can't even talk to the winemakers.

If you get up to Ukiah, Mendocino Co. Winery (AKA Parducci Winery) does not charge for tasting. They have some good wines.

Skidmoc, you must have been tasting on the East Coast! Even here, though I have noticed more fees recently, mostly fairly minimal, than I have in the past. Although even here, if there's no charge, it's usually (not always) plonk.

There may be more but only place in Sonoma County I know free tasting is Korbel Champagne cellar in Guerneville, close to Santa Rosa.

A free tasting merely becomes part of the marketing cost. We stopped going to Napa (as much) & started going to Sonoma (more) because of the fees (& snobbery) of Napa. For two people to spend $100 or more a day to 'taste' seems a bit extreme too me. In fact, Napa started the tasting fees many years ago to disuade the afore-mentioned partiers from ruining their weekends. Now it has conveniently leaked over to all days. Perhaps they should only charge large parties ? We go to taste, & buy, those wines that we can not get @ home. I'd prefer to have a few btls. to take home w/me rather than to have tasted @ Opus & the like. By the same token, I don't mind paying to taste library wines & such. BTW - I don't need your tasting glasses either (which is probably what you are paying for, in many cases).