Sonoma or Napa?
 

My husband and I will be spending 2 nights in the San Francisco area next week and would like to tour the wine country a bit. Has anyone experienced the Viansa winery?

I've been to the Viansa winery many times. What would you like to know? They have good wines, a fun food marketplace, and it's a nice (but often windy) place to have a picnic.

Thank you for responding, I'm new to this site and have found it a tremendous help. I guess the real question is Napa or Sonoma? If you didn't know alot about wine and wanted to know more about the area and it's people and only had 2 days which area would you spend time? My interest in the Viansa was piqued because I have a desire to travel to Italy so anything Italian inspired catches my eye. It looks like you could very well spend an afternoon there. What are your thoughts on time?

We spent a few hours at Viansa in December and enjoyed the Italian flavor of their wines and food samples. Stop at Gloria Ferrar and Kline across the road. We also enjoyed the Italian wines at Unti on Dry Creek Road near Healdsburg. Call ahead to visit their tasting room.

Sonoma and the Healdsburg area in particular. Hiway 29 in the Napa winery area is very crowded. The Dry Creek Wineries are the best and Healdsburg is just the nicest little town. The city of Sonoma is also a charming little town but if you want to see some beautiful wineries (Ferrari Corrano(?)) and taste some really good stuff - head up to Dry Creek.

Napa is too crowded

The Napa Valley may be crowded, but perhaps that's because it has so much to offer: interesting little towns and places to stay, many wineries to visit, and excellent restaurants.

I also think a couple of hours at Viansa is more than enough, and that includes lunch. The other suggestions for that area were nice as well. If I were new to the area and wanted to learn more about wine, no matter which area I chose I would tour one big winery to see how wine is made and then switch to small out of the way places I've never heard of. Places that don't sell their wine through major distribution are going to give you the most bang for your buck as far as buying wine to drink at home and give to friends, because you can't get it where you live! Many of the wines that are distributed are actually more expensive at the winery than a local grocery store.

That's true Monica. Maybe do a tour at Benziger, it's really a nice one. As far as Viansa goes, most limos and tour buses take the masses up there. It has a great gift shop, lots of free goodies (which draw the masses) and some pretty good wines, Lorenzo being my favorite, but rather expensive. We were wine club members for 2 years, but feel the quality really isn't there anymore. I hear that the company has changed hands. ? I think it's more a tourist stop now. There are some big and beautiful places in S Sonoma Valley, such as Domaine Chandon, Viansa, Gloria Ferrer...but the best part of Sonoma is to drive the winding backroads and discover some of the family owned wineries and meet the owners and winemakers.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. I think we will do as suggested and tour a large winery and then travel the backroads for the more personal touch in Sonoma. After our 2 days there we are headed for Maui and I have gotten a great deal of information from this site on that leg of our journey.I will post any interesting information when we return. Thanks again.

I'd vote for Sonoma -- I think it's generally less busy. We went to Buena Vista Carneros (great wine, but staff wasn't too friendly) and Benziger (good wine, friendly staff, fun tour). Someone else above mentioned Benziger too -- it's a biodynamic vineyard, which is really interesting.

Didn't get to Viansa -- the mudslides chased us out (this was in January). Friends of ours went to Viansa and loved it, though!

A vote for Sonoma--definitely!!! Love Viansa and Gloria Ferrer; try to get to Landmark. It's beautiful & has a great bocce court. Ledson is beautiful too. We also like Gundlach Bundschu in Sonoma & Ravenswood (they often have barbecues & bbq goes GREAT with their Zins!)