Wine Tasting Trolley Style
On a sunny day in Napa, we opted to try something new — the wine tasting trolley. The plan was to hop on the San Francisco-style replica trolley car for an open-air ride through rustic, sun-kissed Sonoma and visit wineries.
This vintage trolley picked us on the curb of our hotel around 9:45 a.m. We felt like real VIPs to be one of the first. So we chose our seats up front with only a brass bar separating us from Sonoma’s morning traffic…which, on the weekend, can be challenging.
A couple other ladies sitting up front became our fast friends. In fact, we recognized them from our flight to CA. They sat in the seats directly in front of us and here they were again! From the start, we knew that this was going to be a fun time.
For more than 6 hours, we toured 4 different wineries and ate a fabulous lunch catered from the girl and the fig. Our driver supplied us with water in between wineries. It was just nice we didn’t have to drive and could enjoy the wine tasting, sunshine and great conversations.
Our trolley driver was also our guide. He loved classic rock music and played great tunes as we went from place to place.
Our scheduled stops:
Ravenwood
Buenavista
Mayo
Valley of the Moon
Each winery had something different to offer with one being the oldest, one having amazing views — albeit, a little creepy, one a smaller operation and another a large operation. The variety gave us some insight into wine-making as an art in this valley.
Here are a couple fun facts we learned on the tour:
“Did you know that great wine is 90% farming and 10% wine-making?”
Sonoma means valley of the moon and you can see the moon rise and set several times nightly over the eastern mountain range
Around 3ish we rocked out with the trolley driver as he drove us back to the hotel with advice on a few other wineries to check out, one having a little something to do with the founder of the Doobie Brothers, B.F. Cohn.
We definitely recommend the Sonoma Trolley Tour. The tour cost was around $99 pp for the ride and lunch plus $68 in tasting fees. In some wineries, the tasting fees are waived if you buy enough wine.
Check out the wine tasting trolley if you head to Sonoma and tell them the Jetsetladyz sent you!
