Your favorite SMALL Napa/Sonoma wineries
 

For our week-long trip to Wine Country in September, we'd like to visit as many small wineries as we can. We'll definitely hit the biggies, like Mondavi, but I'd appreciate your suggestions for the wineries that do smaller scale tours/tastings. Thanks for your help.

In Sonoma/Russian River area we really liked Russian Hill Winery. Excellent 2002 Pinot. Also liked David Caffaro on Dry Creek Road. Gave us barrel tastings...about 8 of them! No tours, just tastings.

V Sattui Winery is a great one. They used to sell their wine only at the vineyard and it is excellent.

In St. Helena, Freemark Abbey is one of my favorites for their Riesling and Viognier. In Sonoma, I also like Imagery for their Artistry Viognier. Cheers and enjoy the wine country! ***kim*** ((f))

Miner; Paradigm; Goosecross all in Napa

Wermuth on the Silverado trail near Calistoga. He makes a red and a white wine and will sign your purchased bottles. I believe this is the smallest winery in the area and is worth the visit. I absolutely love the white wine he makes!

Another vote for Miner...Sam Kasper did a wine tasting at our favorite local wine Bar and I think I fell in love with her. Something about a British accent, maybe??? Loved all of their reds. Very consistent.

Also Noah in Yountville and the Jessup outlet, also in Yountville. I think both will do tours but by appointment.

Van der Heyden is a very funky place, too.

Vincent Arroyo and Dutch Henry in Calistoga--excellent wines, small operations, nice people!

Love Keenan Winery up Spring Mountain Rd. from St. Helena. VERY small, but great wine, friendly people, and good views on the way up the "mountain."

i liked murphy-goode. great cabernet.
;-)

R5, what about your wine supply :)

:)) Faina !
From the land of a 1,000 wineries I have so many SMALL favorites and it's ever so easy to chance upon a new one in
my daily travels...

I'll stick to my faves nearby here in Sonoma:
Martin-Ray and Joseph Swan near Forestville between Guerneville Road
and River Road.
North of River Road along Westside Road
in the Russian River Valley are
Davis Bynum and Gary Farrell ('tho his distribution is getting larger).
Continue on up in to the Dry Creek
area and call ahead (if weekdays) to visit Doug Nalle.
Over by Sonoma town in Glen Ellen
KAZ is worth a stop.
R5

Ravenswood has terrific reds and Gundlach-Bunschu good wines and a tasting room with character (and sometimes characters) - both on the outskirts of Sonoma. They are my top favorites.

Another vote for Van der Hayden. Gorgeous wines that you can't get anywhere else, generous tastings, very friendly and informative.

Basically a man, a shed and a wet dog (it was raining when we visited.

Loved it.

S. Anderson for champagnes. You can tour their beautiful cave with cathedral ceilings and fresh flowers by candlelight.

Davis Bynum will always hold a place in my heart for introducing me to wonderful Zinfandels...it was also the one of the first small winery we visited in the area and was exactly what I'd anticipated!

diamond hills in oakville. it is not far from the oakville grocery, up a hill and you can picnic there overlooking the valley. their reserve chardonnay is excellent and their pinot noir is pretty good too.

I'll second Coffaro up in the Healdsburg/Russian River Valley area, as well as Fritz just up the road. There's also a great little tasting room called Locals in the village of Windsor.
Closer to Sonoma/Glen Ellen area, we LOVED Loxton - it's on a tiny side road, but Chris Loxton, the owner/winemaker, was great!!!

Robert Sinskey, on the Silverado Trail.

Regusci in Napa, they also make some fine olive oil & Imagery in Sonoma. Imagery is tied to another larger winery but these are all small batch & different types of varietals that for the most past must be purchased at the winery. Preston is also good for a picnic & try to get there early and try the bread that they make.